Latin authors

"Cras ingens iterabimus aequor"

"Quamquam ridentem dicere verum quid vetat? ut pueris olim dant crustula blandi doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima."

"What odds does it make to the man who lives within Nature's bounds, whether he ploughs a hundred acres or a thousand?"

"Bona pars hominum est decepta cupidine falso 'nil satis est', inquit, 'quia tanti quantum habeas sis."

"Saepe stilum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint scripturus."

"Let’s put a limit to the scramble for money. ... Having got what you wanted, you ought to begin to bring that struggle to an end."

"Inde fit ut raro, qui se vixisse beatum dicat et exacto contentus tempore vita cedat uti conviva satur, reperire queamus."

"Non satis est puris versum perscribere verbis."

"Atqui si vitiis mediocribus ac mea paucis mendosa est natura, alioqui recta, velut si egregio inspersos reprehendas corpore naevos, si neque avaritiam neque sordes nec mala lustra obiciet vere quisquam mihi, purus et insons, ut me collaudem, si et vivo carus amicis... at hoc nunc laus illi debetur et a me gratia maior. nil me paeniteat sanum patris huius, eoque non, ut magna dolo factum negat esse suo pars, quod non ingenuos habeat clarosque parentis, sic me defendam."

"Nil sine magno vita labore dedit mortalibus."

"in pace, ut sapiens, aptarit idonea bello"

"Adclinis falsis animus meliora recusat."

"Quocirca vivite fortes, fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus"

"Ille sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum abit : unus utrique Error, sed variis illudit partibus."

"Heu, Fortuna, quis est crudelior in nos Te deus? Ut semper gaudes illudere rebus Humanis!"

"Sed convivatoris uti ducis ingenium res Adversae nudare solent, celare secundae."

"Dum licet, in rebus jucundis vive beatus; Vive memor quam sis aevi brevis."

"Bellaque matribus detestata"

"Nequiquam deus abscidit Prudens Oceano dissociabili Terras, si tamen impiae Non tangenda rates transiliunt vada."

"Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam."

"Nil desperandum..."

"Nunc vino pellite curas."

"Permitte divis cetera."

"Dum loquimur, fugerit invida Aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero."

"O matre pulchra filia pulchrior"

"Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus."

"Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem."

"Auream quisquis mediocritatem diligit, tutus caret obsoleti sordibus tecti, caret invidenda sobrius aula."

"Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, labuntur anni nec pietas moram rugis et instanti senectae adferet indomitaeque morti."

"Virginibus puerisque canto."

"Aequa lege Necessitas Sortitur insignes et imos; Omne capax movet urna nomen."

"Iustum et tenacem propositi virum non civium ardor prava iubentium, non vultus instantis tyranni mente quatit solida."

"Si fractus illabatur orbis, impavidum ferient ruinae."

"Vis consili expers mole ruit sua."

"Come, Mercury, by whose minstrel spell Amphion raised the Theban stones, Come, with thy seven sweet strings, my shell, Thy "diverse tones," Nor vocal once nor pleasant, now To rich man's board and temple dear: Put forth thy power, till Lyde bow Her stubborn ear."

"Crescentem sequitur cura pecuniam, Maiorumque fames."

"Magnas inter opes inops."

"Quod adest memento componere aequus."

"Ille potens sui laetusque deget, cui licet in diem dixisse "vixi: cras vel atra nube polum pater occupato vel sole puro.""

"Exegi monumentum aere perennius"

"Pulvis et umbra sumus."

"Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona."

"Quid verum atque decens curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum."

"Nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri, quo me cumque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes."

"Virtus est vitium fugere et sapientia prima stultitia caruisse."

"Nos numerus sumus et fruges consumere nati."

"Nam cur quae laedunt oculum festinas demere; si quid est animum, differs curandi tempus in annum?"

"Dimidium facti qui coepit habet; sapere aude; incipe!"

"Qui recte vivendi prorogat horam, Rusticus exspectat dum defluat amnis."

"Semper avarus eget."

"Ira furor brevis est: animum rege: qui nisi paret imperat."

"Inter spem curamque, timores inter et iras, Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum: Grata superveniet quae non sperabitur hora."

"Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum. grata superveniet, quae non sperabitur hora."

"Me pinguem et nitidum bene curata cute vises, cum ridere voles Epicuri de grege porcum."

"Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret."

"Caelum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt."

"Pauper enim non est, cui rerum suppetit usus. si ventri bene, si lateri est pedibusque tuis, nil divitiae poterunt regales addere maius."

"Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors"

"Nam neque divitibus contingunt gaudia solis, nec vixit male, qui natus moriensque fefellit."

"Sedit qui timuit ne non succederet."

"Semel emissum volat irrevocabile verbum."

"Qualem commendes, etiam atque etiam aspice, ne mox incutiant aliena tibi peccata pudorem."

"Nam tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet."

"Dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici; Expertus metuit."

"Interdum volgus rectum videt, est ubi peccat."

"Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit et artes intulit agresti Latio."

"Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes."

"Natales grate numeras?"

"Inceptis gravibus plerumque et magna professis purpureus, late qui splendeat, unus et alter adsuitur pannus."

"Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio."

"Non satis est pulchra esse poemata; dulcia sunto Et, quocumque uolent, animum auditoris agunto."

"Si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi."

"Format enim Natura prius nos intus ad omnem Fortunarum habitum, juvat, aut impellit ad iram, Aut ad humum moerore gravi deducit, et angit."

"Difficile est proprie communia dicere."

"Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere fidus Interpres."

"Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus."

"In medias res."

"Et quae Desperat tractata nitescere posse relinquit."

"Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons."

"Grais ingenium, Grais dedit ore rotundo Musa loqui, præter laudem nullius avaris. . ."

"Quidquid praecipies, esto brevis, ut cito dicta percipiant animi dociles teneantque fideles: omne supervacuum pleno de pectore manat."

"Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci, lectorem delectando pariterque monendo."

"... Siquid tamen olim scripseris, in Maeci descendat iudicis auris et patris et nostras, nonumque prematur in annum membranis intus positis; delere licebit quod non edideris; nescit uox missa reuerti."

"Sunt delicta tamen quibus ignovisse velimus."

"Indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus;"

"Mediocribus esse poetis Non homines, non di, non concessere columnae."

"Nec satis apparet, cur versus factitet."

"Abnormis sapiens crassaque Minerva."

"Ab ovo Usque ad mala."

"Absentem qui rodit amicum, Qui non defendit alio culpante, solutos Qui captat risus hominum, famamque dicacis; Fingere qui non visa potest, commissa tacere Qui nequit, hic niger est, hunc tu, Romane, caveto."

"Adsit Regula, peccatis quæ pœnas irroget æquas Ne scutica dignum horribili sectere flagello."

"Ars longa, vita brevis."

"Note that Horace wrote four different kinds of poems on account of the four ages, the Odes for boys, the Ars Poetica for young men, the Satires for mature men, the Epistles for old and complete men."

"When I was a boy I knew the Odes of Horace backwards and forwards, and when I came to manhood year by year those odes came knocking at the door of my heart at the most unexpected times and places."

"What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil? What has Horace to do with the Psalter?"

"The influences which formed his moral and poetical character, are the prevalent modes of feeling and thought among the people, who had achieved the conquest of the world, and, weary of their own furious contentions, now began to slumber in the proud consciousness of universal empire. In him as in an individual example appears the change which took place in the fortunes, position, sentiments, occupations, estimation, character, mode of living, when the Roman, from the citizen of a free and turbulent republic, became the subject of a peaceful monarchy."

"The mingling intellectual elements blend together, even in more singular union, in the mind of the Poet. Grecian education and tastes have not polished off the old Roman independence; the imitator of Greek forms of verse writes the purest vernacular Latin; the Epicurean philosophy has not subdued his masculine shrewdness and good sense to dreaming indolence. In the Roman part of his character he blends some reminiscences of the sturdy virtue of the Sabine or Apulian mountaineers, with the refined manners of the city."

"As compared with the highest lyric poetry, the Odes of Horace are greatly deficient; but as occasional pieces inspired by friendship, by moral sentiment, or as graceful and finished love-verses, they are perfect; their ease, spirit, perspicuity, elegance, and harmony compensate, as far as may be, for the want of the nobler characteristics of daring conception, vehemence, sublimity, and passion."

"His mind was by no means speculative. His was the plain, practical philosophy of common sense... the wisdom of Horace—it may be said without disparagement, for it was the only real attainable wisdom—was that of the world."

"Horace is addressing men accustomed to deal with men—men formed in the vigorous school of public life; and though now reposing perhaps from those more solid and important cares, maintaining that practical energy of character by which they had forced their way to eminence. That sterner practical genius of the Roman people survived the free institutions of Rome; the Romans seemed, as it were, in their idlest moods, to condescend to amusement, not to consider it, like the Greek, one of the common necessities, the ordinary occupations of life. Horace, therefore, has been, and ever will be, the familiar companion, the delight, not of the mere elegant scholar alone, or the imaginative reader, but, we had almost written, the manual of the statesman and the study of the moral philosopher. Of Rome, or of the Roman mind, no one can know anything who is not profoundly versed in Horace; and whoever really understands Horace will have a more perfect and accurate knowledge of the Roman manners and Roman mind than the most diligent and laborious investigator of the Roman antiquities."

"Horace is not satisfied with some superficial vividness; that would betray his sense; he sees further and more clearly into his subject: to describe itself his mind goes fishing and ferreting through the whole treasure-house of words and figures of speech; as his concepts surpass the ordinary, it is not ordinary words that he needs."

"Of the lyric poets, Horace is almost the only one worth reading; he can be lofty sometimes, and yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his Figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."

"His chief claim to literary originality is not that on which he himself rested his hopes of immortality,—that of being the first to adapt certain lyrical metres to the Latin tongue,—but rather that of being the first of those whose works have reached us who establishes a personal relation with his reader, speaks to him as a familiar friend, gives him good advice, tells him the story of his life, and shares with him his private tastes and pleasures,—and all this without any loss of self-respect, any want of modesty or breach of good manners, and in a style so lively and natural that each new generation of readers might fancy that he was addressing them personally and speaking to them on subjects of everyday modern interest."

"The best Genius and most Gentleman-like of Roman Poets."

"We have seen that it is still a debated question whether Horace was a poet. Whatever the answer to that question may be, and whether it be considered a question which requires to be asked or not, it cannot be denied that he possesses in perfection the mechanical requisites for the gay art, an exquisite ear for rhythm, and curious felicity of expression. And while we must deny to him the genuine ardour which makes the passion of Catullus breathe and burn, we cannot but recognize in him qualities which will secure for him the admiration and love of every lover of literature, as long as there exists in the minds of men a sympathy with an honest, manly, and cultured spirit, a genial friendliness, sound common-sense, and urbane self-respect."

"But to the modern world, down to this very great date, Horace is almost an idol. He has forged a link of union between intellects so diverse as those of Dante, Montaigne, Bossuet, Lafontaine, and Voltaire, Hooker, Chesterfield, Gibbon, Wordsworth, and Thackeray. Mystic and atheist, scoffer and preacher, recluse and leader of fashion have in Horace one subject on which they are sympathetic with each other. Gibbon never traveled without a copy of his poems in his pocket; Hooker fled with his Horace to the fields from the reproaches of a railing wife; Thackeray is content if his hero, the future man of the world, has enough Latin on leaving school "to quote Horace respectably through life." Indeed, a certain modicum of Horace is often the remnant of classic lore that the average Englishman and Irishman care to carry with them into the arena of active life. A fancied slight to the memory of Horace is resented in England as a personal insult, and a visit to Italy is nothing unless you have done your duty to the shrine of the poet."

"We owe to Horace a precious store of pointed aphorisms and shrewd comments on life, which, apart from all controversies about his place in poetry, must ever establish a kind of personal relation with his reader, and must have a permanent (perhaps an increasing) value for the world. His odes, moreover, as regards diction and metrification, are a marvelously successful experiment. Whatever may be thought about the meaning which underlies them, their form is perfection itself, and they defy imitation. No attempt to reproduce their effect in Latin or in any other language has met with even a moderate measure of success."

"The gaiety of his spirit and the music of his lyrics will ever fascinate the young; his shrewd common sense will attract the man of the world, whatever be his time of life, his country, or his epoch; and he will always be the most perfect exponent of the actual life and movement of the Augustan age."

"Inopi beneficium bis dat, qui dat celeriter."

"Alienum aes homini ingenuo acerba est servitus."

"Ames parentem, si aequus est, si aliter, feras."

"Audendo virtus crescit, tardando timor."

"Honesta fama melior est pecunia."

"Contra impudentem stulta est nimia ingenuitas"

"He who helps the guilty, shares the crime."

"Honesta turpitudo est pro causa bona."

"Inopiae desunt multa, avaritiae omnia."

"Fortuna cum blanditur, captatum venit."

"Fortuna vitrea est: tum cum splendet frangitur."

"Fortunam citius reperias quam retineas."

"Formonsa facies muta commendatio est."

"In tranquillo esse quisque gubernator potest."

"Iudex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur."

"Necessitas dat legem non ipsa accipit."

"Malum est consilium, quod mutari non potest."

"Invitat culpam qui peccatum praeterit"

"Stultum facit fortuna, quem vult perdere."

"Taciturnitas stulto homini pro sapientia est."

"Velox consilium sequitur paenitentia."

"Proximum ab innocentia tenet locum verecunda peccati confessio."

"As men, we are all equal in the presence of death."

"Receive an injury rather than do one."

"We are interested in others, when they are interested in us."

"Every one excels in something in which another fails."

"There is no penalty attached to a lover's oath."

"The anger of lovers renews the strength of love."

"Confidence is the only bond of friendship."

"Adversity shows whether we have friends, or only the shadows of friends."

"The loss which is unknown is no loss at all."

"A wise man rules his passions, a fool obeys them."

"When reason rules, money is a blessing."

"Tension weakens the bow; the want of it, the mind."

"He sleeps well who knows not that he sleeps ill."

"He dies twice who perishes by his own hand."

"To spare the guilty is to injure the innocent."

"Learn to see in another's calamity the ills which you should avoid."

"Life is short, but its ills make it seem long."

"There is but a step between a proud man's glory and his disgrace."

"An agreeable companion on a journey is as good as a carriage."

"Society in shipwreck is a comfort to all."

"Many receive advice, few profit by it."

"Have courage, or cunning, when you deal with an enemy."

"Patience is a remedy for every sorrow."

"What happens to one man may happen to all."

"While we stop to think, we often miss our opportunity."

"Whatever you can lose, you should reckon of no account."

"For him who loves labor, there is always something to do."

"Solitude is the mother of anxieties."

"Even a single hair casts its shadow."

"Pain will force even the truthful to speak falsely."

"It is sometimes expedient to forget who we are."

"We may with advantage at times forget what we know."

"Even when the wound is healed, the scar remains."

"Even when there is no law, there is conscience."

"You should hammer your iron when it is glowing hot."

"What is left when honor is lost?"

"A fair exterior is a silent recommendation."

"Fortune is not satisfied with inflicting one calamity."

"When Fortune is on our side, popular favor bears her company."

"His own character is the arbiter of every one's fortune."

"There are some remedies worse than the disease."

"Powerful indeed is the empire of habit."

"Do not take part in the council, unless you are called."

"By doing nothing men learn to do ill."

"Amid a multitude of projects, no plan is devised."

"Success makes some crimes honorable."

"When two do the same thing, it is not the same thing after all."

"In sterculino plurimum gallus potest."

"No tears are shed, when an enemy dies."

"To forget the wrongs you receive, is to remedy them."

"The bow too tensely strung is easily broken."

"Treat your friend as if he might become an enemy."

"Practice is the best of all instructors."

"A noble spirit finds a cure for injustice in forgetting it."

"He who is bent on doing evil can never want occasion."

"Never find your delight in another's misfortune."

"The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself."

"Saxum volutum non obducitur musco"

"Never promise more than you can perform."

"No one should be judge in his own cause."

"Nothing can be done at once hastily and prudently."

"Quod vult habet, qui cupere quod sat est potest."

"It is only the ignorant who despise education."

"Don't turn back when you are just at the goal."

"No man is happy who does not think himself so."

"He is a despicable sage whose wisdom does not profit himself."

"Every day should be passed as if it were to be our last."

"Money alone sets all the world in motion."

"Be your money's master, not its slave."

"It is a very hard undertaking to seek to please everybody."

"We should provide in peace what we need in war."

"God looks at the clean hands, not the full ones."

"It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity."

"No one knows what he can do till he tries."

"They pass peaceful lives who ignore mine and thine."

"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it."

"Better to be ignorant of a matter than half know it."

"Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them."

"The greatest of empires, is the empire over one's self."

"Avarice is as destitute of what it has, as what it has not."

"The poor man is ruined as soon as he begins to ape the rich."

"Either be silent or say something better than silence."

"It is a consolation to the wretched to have companions in misery."

"I have often regretted my speech, never my silence."

"Speech is a mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so is he."

"Let your life be pleasing to the multitude, and it can not be so to yourself."

"To do two things at once is to do neither."

"Familiarity breeds contempt."

"Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset."

"Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium, atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant."

"Et maiores vestros et posteros cogitate."

"Proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris."

"Tu vero felix, Agricola, non vitae tantum claritate, sed etiam opportunitate mortis."

"The Germans themselves I should regard as aboriginal, and not mixed at all with other races through immigration or intercourse. For in former times, it was not by land but on shipboard that those who sought to emigrate would arrive; and the boundless and, so to speak, hostile ocean beyond us, is seldom entered by a sail from our world."

"They even say that an altar dedicated to Ulysses, with the addition of the name of his father, Laertes, was formerly discovered on the same spot, and that certain monuments and tombs with Greek inscriptions, still exist on the borders of Germany and Rhaetia."

"On the whole, one would say that their strength is in their infantry, which fights along with the cavalry; admirably adapted to the action of the latter is the swiftness of certain foot soldiers, who are picked from the entire youth of their country, and stationed in front of the line."

"Scutum reliquisse praecipuum flagitium, nec aut sacris adesse aut concilium inire ignominioso fas; multique superstites bellorum infamiam laqueo finierunt."

"Mercury is the deity whom they chiefly worship, and on certain days they deem it right to sacrifice to him even with human victims."

"Quanquam severa illic matrimonia"

"...ibi boni mores valent quam alibi bonae leges."

"No one in Germany laughs at vice, nor do they call it the fashion to corrupt and to be corrupted."

"Indeed, the crowning proof of their valour and their strength is that they keep up their superiority without harm to others."

"Dwelling on one side of the Chauci and Chatti, the Cherusci long cherished, unassailed, an excessive and enervating love of peace. This was more pleasant than safe, for to be peaceful is self-deception among lawless and powerful neighbours. Where the strong hand decides, moderation and justice are terms applied only to the more powerful; and so the Cherusci, ever reputed good and just, are now called cowards and fools, while in the case of the victorious Chatti success has been identified with prudence. The downfall of the Cherusci brought with it also that of the Fosi, a neighbouring tribe, which shared equally in their disasters, though they had been inferior to them in prosperous days."

"Their shields are black, their bodies dyed. They choose dark nights for battle, and, by the dread and gloomy aspect of their death-like host, strike terror into the foe, who can never confront their strange and almost infernal appearance."

"All this is unauthenticated, and I shall leave it open."

"Rara temporum felicitate, ubi sentire quae velis, et quae sentias dicere licet."

"Indeed, when a ruler once becomes unpopular, all his acts, be they good or bad, tell against him."

"Once killing starts, it is difficult to draw the line."

"He possessed a peculiar talent of producing effect in whatever he said or did."

"Expugnatae urbis praedam ad militem, deditae ad duces pertinere."

"Divisa inter exercitum ducesque munia: militibus cupidinem pugnandi convenire, duces providendo, consultando, cunctatione saepius quam temeritate prodesse. ut pro virili portione armis ac manu victoriam iuverit, ratione et consilio, propriis ducis artibus, profuturum."

"Some might consider him as too fond of fame; for the desire for glory clings even to the best men longer than any other passion."

"Deos fortioribus adesse."

"Vitia erunt donec homines"

"The Jews’ other customs, which are at once perverse and disgusting, owe their strength to their very badness. The most degraded out of other races, scorning their national beliefs, brought to them their contributions and presents. This augmented the wealth of the Jews, as also did the fact, that among themselves they are inflexibly honest and ever ready to shew compassion, though they regard the rest of mankind with all the hatred of enemies. They sit apart at meals, they sleep apart, and though, as a nation, they are singularly prone to lust, they abstain from intercourse with foreign women; among themselves nothing is unlawful. Circumcision was adopted by them as a mark of difference from other men. Those who come over to their religion adopt the practice, and have this lesson first instilled into them, to despise all gods, to disown their country, and set at nought parents, children, and brethren. Still they provide for the increase of their numbers. It is a crime among them to kill any newly-born infant."

"Tiberii Gaique et Claudii ac Neronis res florentibus ipsis ob metum falsae, postquam occiderant, recentibus odiis compositae sunt. inde consilium mihi pauca de Augusto et extrema tradere, mox Tiberii principatum et cetera, sine ira et studio, quorum causas procul habeo."

"Juniores post Actiacam victoriam, etiam senes plerique inter bella civium nati: quotus quisque reliquus qui rem publicam vidisset? Igitur verso civitatis statu nihil usquam prisci et integri moris: omnes exuta aequalitate iussa principis aspectare, ..."

"Pacem sine dubio post haec, verum cruentam."

"Nihil deorum honoribus relictum, cum se templis et effigie numinum per flamines et sacerdotes coli vellet."

"Ne Tiberium quidem caritate aut rei publicae cura successorem adscitum, sed quoniam adrogantiam saevitiamque eius introspexerit, comparatione deterrima sibi gloriam quaesivisse."

"So true is it that all transactions of preeminent importance are wrapt in doubt and obscurity; while some hold for certain facts the most precarious hearsays, others turn facts into falsehood; and both are exaggerated by posterity."

"For I deem it to be the chief function of history to rescue merit from oblivion, and to hold up before evil words and evil deeds the terror of the reprobation of posterity."

"Viginti clarissimarum familiarum imagines antelatae sunt, Manlii, Quinctii aliaque eiusdem nobilitatis nomina. sed praefulgebant Cassius atque Brutus eo ipso quod effigies eorum non visebantur."

"Neque femina amissa pudicitia alia abnuerit."

"Suum cuique decus posteritas rependit."

"Punitis ingeniis, gliscit auctoritas."

"He had talents equal to business, and aspired no higher."

"He upbraided Macro, in no obscure and indirect terms, "with forsaking the setting sun and turning to the rising"."

"What is today supported by precedents will hereafter become a precedent."

"Habet aliquid ex iniquo omne magnum exemplum, quod contra singulos, utilitate publica rependitus."

"non enim ignavia magna imperia contineri"

"The name [Christians] was derived from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, suffered under Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Judæa. By that event the sect, of which he was the founder, received a blow, which, for a time, checked the growth of a dangerous superstition; but it revived soon after, and spread with recruited vigour, not only in Judæa, the soil that gave it birth, but even in the city of Rome, the common sink into which every thing infamous and abominable flows like a torrent from all quarters of the world."

"nisi impunitatis cupido retinuisset, magnis semper conatibus adversa."

"cupido dominandi cunctis adfectibus flagrantior est"

"Tacitus appears to have been as great an enthusiast as Petrarch for the revival of the republic and universal empire. He has exerted the vengeance of history upon the emperors, but has veiled the conspiracies against them, and the incorrigible corruption of the people which probably provoked their most atrocious cruelties. Tyranny can scarcely be practised upon a virtuous and wise people."

"Of all histories I think Tacitus simply the best."

"[Tacitus] has a higher reputation than other more learned historians, because he not only narrates events, but, so to speak, writes a commentary on his own narrative."

"The appeal of Tacitus' Germania to Englishmen as an account of their ancestors was to be a lasting one; its influence is still obvious in the high-Victorian scholarship of Stubbs, Freeman and Green... As a piece of ethnography, Tacitus' work has much charm, sowing in the mind images from heroic life: the lightly dressed warriors, bound by a touching loyalty to their chief, urged on in battle by their chaste wives; the assemblies, held in the open at new or full moon, clashing weapons as a sign of assent; the investiture of the young warrior with shield and spear; the villages of scattered houses, each surrounded by a clearing; everywhere the surrounding forest. Tacitean society is not one of absolute equality; there are important hereditary distinctions of rank. But the general impression is one of a hard, in some respects savage, but simple, spacious and independent life, and a society essentially transparent and free, bound together by intelligible, strong, yet largely voluntary loyalties."

"He represented to the life...not only outward actions...but also the most secret of thoughts."

"His bias against the dynastic system is plain; yet his accuracy, though severely probed by modern criticism, can rarely be impugned. Though sometimes an unfavourable interpreter of his facts, he will not blacken even Tiberius or Nero by crediting stupid rumours about them (Ann. 4. 1 1; 16. 6). His picture of capital and court is terrible, but its general truth is incontestable. His gaze is focused upon Rome; when he looks farther be approves the sturdy simplicity of North Italy and the provinces (Ann. 16. 5), and can pen a moving appeal for the preservation of the Empire (Hist. 4. 74). Though mistrustful of "civilization" and of its debilitating effects, he never despairs of human nature: even the Civil War produced examples of heroism, loyalty, and friendship (Hist. I. 3), and virtue is not confined to past ages (Ann. 3. 55). Napoleon called Tacitus a "traducer of humanity": from one who spent his powers in annihilating humanity this verdict is interesting, but simply untrue. In independent research and judgement, in essential truth, in the dramatic power and nobility of an enthralling style, Tacitus claims his place among the greatest historians."

"He was most diligent in explaining motives (in consiliis explicandis) and most penetrating in enquiring into causes; no one has seen more acutely or described more faithfully the arts of princes and of those around them."

"The greatest man who has as yet given himself to the recording of human affairs is, beyond question, Cornelius Tacitus. Alone in Tacitus a serene calmness of insight was compatible with intensity of feeling. He took no side; he may have been Imperialist, he may have been Republican, but he has left no sign whether he was either: he appears to have sifted facts with scrupulous integrity; to administer his love, his scorn, his hatred, according only to individual merit: and his sentiments are rather felt by the reader in the life-like clearness of his portraits, than expressed in words by himself. Yet such a power of seeing into things was only possible to him, because there was no party left with which he could determinedly side, and no wide spirit alive in Rome through which he could feel."

"Tacitus is the only writer I know that comes up to my idea of such a philosophical historian. Even the interesting Livy himself cannot, in this sense, be compared to him. Both indeed have soared far above those ignorant compilers, who see nothing in facts but the circumstances of which they are composed: but the one has written history as a rhetorician, and the other as a philosopher. Not that either Tacitus was ignorant of the language of the passions, or Livy in that of reason; the latter, more earnest to please than instruct, conducts us step by step in the retinue of his heroes, and makes us alternately experience the effects of horrour, pity, and admiration. Tacitus employs the force of rhetoric only to display the connection between the links that form the chain of historical events, and to instruct the reader by sensible and profound reflections."

"The most civilized nations of modern Europe issued from the woods of Germany, and in the rude institutions of those barbarians, we may still distinguish the original principles of our present laws and manners. In their primitive state of simplicity and independence, the Germans were surveyed by the discerning eye, and delineated by the masterly pencil of Tacitus, the first of historians who applied the science of philosophy to the study of facts. In his incomparable treatise, which contains, perhaps, more ideas than words, he has comprehended a description of the German manners, that has formerly exercised the diligence of innumerable antiquarians, and employed the genius and penetration of the philosophic historians of our own times."

"Moral purpose...is never absent from Tacitus' mind. The sequence of events on which he chooses to focus his attention provoked the sternest moral reflections. To him, as to many others, decline and disaster seemed due to vice. Virtue and vice are continually emphasized and contrasted. As Tacitus himself says, "I regard it as the foremost task of the historian to ensure that virtues are not left unrecorded, and that evil words and deeds are made subject to the fears inspired by posterity's denunciation.""

"[I]t seems that he is not really able to believe that an autocrat can be good. For he constantly stresses the evils of rule by one man. Perhaps this conviction is the central point of his philosophy. No amount of experience, he infers, can stand up against the corrupting effects of autocratic authority. "In spite of all his experience of public affairs, Tiberius was transformed and deranged by absolute power." So it was under Tiberius that freedom suffered its most fatal losses. As these are remorselessly described we do not feel two thousand years distant."

"Human fate often looks black to Tacitus. So does human nature. Yet he is far from sceptical about the potentialities of the human spirit. Even in times of civil war and tyrannical government, he is able to point to human actions of extraordinary virtue, bravery, and pertinacity. Indeed he is a humanist, and one whose contribution to our western tradition of humanism has been immense and singularly inspiring."

"The outstanding quality of Tacitus is his brilliance as a literary artist. Racine called him "the greatest painter of antiquity". Others have compared his work not so much to a series of pictures as to a continuous frieze. But of his supreme artistic genius there can be no doubt. A large part of the artistry resides in his style – the aspect of his talent which a translator has least hope of reproducing. Now ancient readers usually recognized stylistic talent, and by no means found that it interfered with their enjoyment when history contained a strong infusion of rhetoric. But the style of Tacitus, as it had developed to its culminating point in these Annals, was indeed extraordinary. It displays a sharp, astringent contrast to the rotund periods of Cicero and to the flowing, "milky" diction of Livy."

"Cornelius Tacitus is very good at teaching subjects how to live and act prudently, just as he teaches tyrants how to establish tyranny."

"Tacitus I consider the first writer in the world without a single exception. His book is a compound of history and morality of which we have no other example."

"[Tacitus] is a great writer who is especially appropriate for great persons, that is, those who hold the tiller of the state or those who give advice and counsel to the helmsman. What part of civil and military prudence, and what emotions of men (even concealed), what fortunes or events does he not openly reveal or show under a veil? ... There is none among the Greeks or Romans, and I will confidently assert, there will never be any, who can be compared with Tacitus in the glory earned by his prudence of every sort."

"Tacitus goes beyond this common source to provide a level of detail and an acuteness of political perception that is unique to his version. Likewise, though Tacitus knew the common sources which Suetonius, Dio, and Plutarch used in their accounts of the Civil War of 69, his result is so different that we must attribute the final product to his own craft and intelligence rather than to his raw material."

"No international enterprise as yet has taken the initiative in collecting the hundred most dangerous books ever written. No doubt some time this collection will be made. When it is done, I suggest that Homer's Iliad and Tacitus' Germania should be given high priority among these hundred dangerous books. This is no reflection on Homer and Tacitus. Tacitus was a gentleman and, for all that I know, Homer was a gentleman too. But who will deny that the Iliad and the Germania raise most unholy passions in the human mind? It is fortunately not my task to speak here about the influence of Tacitus' Germania. One horror is enough for one day."

"Tacitus has written an entire work on the manners of the Germans. This work is short, but it comes from the pen of Tacitus, who was always concise, because he saw everything at a glance."

"Tacitus farther describing the nature of the Germans, shews that the Romans had run greater hazards from them than from the Samnites, Carthaginians and Parthians, and attributes their bravery to the Liberty they enjoyed; for they are, says he, neither exhausted by Tributes, nor vexed by Publicans: and lest this Liberty should be violated, the chief men consult about things of lesser moment; but the most important matters are determined by all. Whoever would know the opinion of that wise Author concerning the German Liberty, may read his excellent Treatise concerning their Manners and Customs; but I presume this may be enough to prove that they lived free under such Magistrates as they chose, regulated by such Laws as they made, and retained the principal powers of the Government in their general or particular Councils."

"If Juvenal is supreme over the poets of his time, Tacitus is as clearly monarch of the prose-writers. He was continuing the work of Livy and writing from the same republican standpoint. But for history-writing he had certainly discovered a finer style of rhetoric. Both are rhetoricians first and historians a long way after, but the packed epigrams of Tacitus say more in a line than Livy is capable of thinking in a chapter. In describing a battle, a riot, or a panic, or in painting some tragic scene, such as the death of Vitellius, Tacitus is unequalled. The freedom that was permitted to him and Suetonius in depicting the crimes and follies of the earlier Cæsars affords remarkable evidence of the freedom of letters under Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian. Here, again, it is necessary, as in the case of Juvenal, to beware of accepting too literally the severity of his criticisms upon the preceding generation. To praise the past at the expense of the present was one of the traditions of Roman literature. But Tacitus was the last of Rome's great historians and his loss was irreparable."

"These personal statements of Tacitus' aims and beliefs seem to be, if not wholly consistent, at least candid; but even the most superficial reading of his history will bring them into question. The claim to write "sine ira et studio" has been condemned by certain critics as sheer hypocrisy, and while most scholars have thought it honest in intention, few have considered the attempt successful. The aim of moral instruction, "ne virtutes sileantur", has been dismissed as political partisanship; his wish to trace events to their causes has been thought casual or pretentious. His views on philosophy and religion have been variously called agnostic, sceptical, stoic, fatalist, superstitious, and (as a last resort) "deeply original"."

"Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep the truth and let God go."

"The most powerful prayer, one wellnigh omnipotent, and the worthiest work of all is the outcome of a quiet mind. The quieter it is the more powerful, the worthier, the deeper, the more telling and more perfect the prayer is. To the quiet mind all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged into the will of God and dead to its own."

"God wants nothing of you but the gift of a peaceful heart."

"Unmovable disinterest brings man into likeness of God. ... To be full of things is to be empty of God; to be empty of things is to be full of God."

"We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born."

"When God has sent his angel to me, then I know of a surety. ... When God sends his angel to the soul it becomes the one who knows for sure. Not for nothing did God give the keys into St. Peter's keeping, for Peter stands for knowledge, and knowledge is the key that unlocks the door, presses forward and breaks in, to discover God as he is."

"The authorities teach that next to the first emanation, which is the Son coming out of the Father, the angels are most like God. And it may well be true, for the soul at its highest is formed like God, but an angel gives a closer idea of Him. That is all an angel is: an idea of God. For this reason the angel was sent to the soul, so that the soul might be re-formed by it, to be the divine idea by which it was first conceived. Knowledge comes through likeness. And so because the soul may know everything, it is never at rest until it comes to the original idea, in which all things are one. And there it comes to rest in God."

"We shall find God in everything alike, and find God always alike in everything."

"Only those who have dared to let go can dare to reenter."

"Gott kann uns ebensowenig entbehren wie wir ihn."

"Der Mensch soll sich nicht genügen lassen an einem gedachten Gott; denn wenn der Gedanke vergeht, so vergeht auch der Gott."

"The more God is in all things, the more He is outside them. The more He is within, the more without."

"Now the Father draws us from the evil of sin to the goodness of His grace with the might of His measureless power, and He needs all the resources of His strength in order to convert sinners, more than when He was about to make heaven and earth, which He made with His own power without help from any creature. But when He is about to convert a sinner, He always needs the sinner's help. "He converts thee not without thy help," as St. Augustine says."

"A man may go into the field and say his prayer and be aware of God, or, he may be in Church and be aware of God; but, if he is more aware of Him because he is in a quiet place, that is his own deficiency and not due to God, Who is alike present in all things and places, and is willing to give Himself everywhere so far as lies in Him. He knows God rightly who knows Him everywhere."

"When man humbles himself, God cannot restrain His mercy; He must come down and pour His grace into the humble man, and He gives Himself most of all, and all at once, to the least of all. It is essential to God to give, for His essence is His goodness and His goodness is His love. Love is the root of all joy and sorrow. Slavish fear of God is to be put away. The right fear is the fear of losing God. If the earth flee downward from heaven, it finds heaven beneath it; if it flee upward, it comes again to heaven. The earth cannot flee from heaven: whether it flee up or down, the heaven rains its influence upon it, and stamps its impress upon it, and makes it fruitful, whether it be willing or not. Thus doth God with men: whoever thinketh to escape Him, flies into His bosom, for every corner is open to Him. God brings forth His Son in thee, whether thou likest it or not, whether thou sleepest or wakest; God worketh His own will. That man is unaware of it, is man's fault, for his taste is so spoilt by feeding on earthly things that he cannot relish God's love. If we had love to God, we should relish God, and all His works; we should receive all things from God, and work the same works as He worketh."

"The everlasting and paternal wisdom saith, "Whoso heareth Me is not ashamed." If he is ashamed of anything he is ashamed of being ashamed. Whoso worketh in Me sineth not. Whoso confesseth Me and feareth Me, shall have eternal life. Whoso will hear the wisdom of the Father must dwell deep, and abide at home, and be at unity with himself."

"All that the Eternal Father teaches and reveals is His being, His nature, and His Godhead, which He manifests to us in His Son, and teaches us that we are also His Son."

"A question arises regarding the angels who dwell with us, serve us and protect us, whether their joys are equal to those of the angels in heaven, or whether they are diminished by the fact that they protect and serve us. No, they are certainly not; for the work of the angels is the will of God, and the will of God is the work of the angels; their service to us does not hinder their joy nor their working. If God told an angel to go to a tree and pluck caterpillars off it, the angel would be quite ready to do so, and it would be his happiness, if it were the will of God."

"The man who abides in the will of God wills nothing else than what God is, and what He wills. If he were ill he would not wish to be well. If he really abides in God's will, all pain is to him a joy, all complication, simple: yea, even the pains of hell would be a joy to him. He is free and gone out from himself, and from all that he receives, he must be free. If my eye is to discern colour, it must itself be free from all colour. The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love."

"We read in the Gospels that Our Lord fed many people with five loaves and two fishes. Speaking parabolically, we may say that the first loaf was — that we should know ourselves, what we have been everlastingly to God, and what we now are to Him. The second — that we should pity our fellow Christian who is blinded; his loss should grieve us as much as our own. The third — that we should know our Lord Jesus Christ's life, and follow it to the utmost of our capacity. The fourth — that we should know the judgments of God. ... The fifth is — that we should know the Godhead which has flowed into the Father and filled Him with joy, and which has flowed into the Son and filled Him with wisdom, and the Two are essentially one."

"Now rejoice, all ye powers of my soul, that you are so united with God that no one may separate you from Him. I cannot fully praise nor love Him therefore must I die, and cast myself into the divine void, till I rise from non-existence to existence."

"The Father and the Son have one Will, and that Will is the Holy Ghost, Who gives Himself to the soul so that the Divine Nature permeates the powers of the soul so that it can only do God-like works."

"Sanctification is the best of all things, for it cleanses the soul, and illuminates the conscience, and kindles the heart, and wakens the spirit, and girds up the loins, and glorifies virtue and separates us from creatures, and unites us with God. The quickest means to bring us to perfection is suffering; none enjoy everlasting blessedness more than those who share with Christ the bitterest pangs. Nothing is sharper than suffering, nothing is sweeter than to have suffered. The surest foundation in which this perfection may rest is humility; whatever here crawls in the deepest abjectness, that the Spirit lifts to the very heights of God, for love brings suffering and suffering brings love."

"Grace is from God, and works in the depth of the soul whose powers it employs. It is a light which issues forth to do service under the guidance of the Spirit. The Divine Light permeates the soul, and lifts it above the turmoil of temporal things to rest in God. The soul cannot progress except with the light which God has given it as a nuptial gift; love works the likeness of God into the soul. The peace, freedom and blessedness of all souls consist in their abiding in God's will. Towards this union with God for which it is created the soul strives perpetually."

"All true morality, inward and outward, is comprehended in love, for love is the foundation of all the commandments. All outward morality must be built upon this basis, not on self-interest. As long as man loves something else than God, or outside God, he is not free, because he has not love. Therefore there is no inner freedom which does not manifest itself in works of love. True freedom is the government of nature in and outside man through God; freedom is essential existence unaffected by creatures. But love often begins with fear; fear is the approach to love: fear is like the awl which draws the shoemaker's thread through the leather."

"The inner work is first of all the work of God's grace in the depth of the soul which subsequently distributes itself among the faculties of the soul, in that of Reason appearing as Belief, in that of Will as Love, and in that of Desire as Hope. When the Divine Light penetrates the soul, it is united with God as light with light. This is the light of faith. Faith bears the soul to heights unreachable by her natural senses and faculties."

"As the peculiar faculty of the eye is to see form and colour, and of the ear to hear sweet tones and voices, so is aspiration peculiar to the soul. To relax from ceaseless aspiration is sin. This energy of aspiration directed to and grasping God, as far as is possible for the creature, is called Hope, which is also a divine virtue. Through this faculty the soul acquires such great confidence that she deems nothing in the Divine Nature beyond her reach."

"As God can only be seen by His own light, so He can only be loved by His own love."

"The moral task of man is a process of spiritualization. All creatures are go-betweens, and we are placed in time that by diligence in spiritual business we may grow liker and nearer to God. The aim of man is beyond the temporal — in the serene region of the everlasting Present."

"This passage from nothingness to real being, this quitting of oneself is a birth accompanied by pain, for by it natural love is excluded. All grief except grief for sin comes from love of the world. In God is neither sorrow, nor grief, nor trouble. Wouldst thou be free from all grief and trouble, abide and walk in God, and to God alone. As long as love of the creature is in us, pain cannot cease."

"Through the higher love the whole life of man is to be elevated from temporal selfishness to the spring of all love, to God: man will again be master over nature by abiding in God and lifting her up to God."

"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "Thank You," that would suffice."

"Variant: If "thank you" is the only prayer you can utter in your lifetime, that would be enough."

"However a quote very similar to this one can actually be found in his works. In Sermon XXVII (Walshe translation/in Quint Sermon XXXIV) we can read:"

"And suddenly you know: It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings."

"The knower and the known are one."

"The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge."

"Meister Eckhart, who has been called the “Father of German thought”, was a Dominican monk, and one of the most profound thinkers of the Middle Ages. ... The importance of Eckhart in the history of scholastic philosophy is considerable. At that period all the efforts of religious philosophy were directed to widen theology, and to effect a reconciliation between reason and faith. The fundamental idea of Eckhart's philosophy is that of the Absolute or Abstract Unity conceived as the sole real existence. His God is the θεο αγνωστο [Theo Agnosto (Unknown God)] of the neoplatonists: He is absolutely devoid of attributes which would be a limitation of His Infinity. God is incomprehensible; in fact, with regard to our limited intelligence, God is the origin and final end of every being."

"The attempt to prove Eckhart a mere scholastic is a failure; the audacities of his German discourses cannot be explained as an accommodation to the tastes of a peculiar audience. For good or evil Eckhart is an original and independent thinker, whose theology is confined by no trammels of authority."

"The Godhead, according to Eckhart, is the universal and eternal Unity comprehending and transcending all diversity. "The Divine nature is Rest," he says in one of the German discourses; and in the Latin fragments we find: "God rests in Himself, and makes all things rest in Him." The three Persons of the Trinity, however, are not mere modes or accidents, but represent a real distinction within the Godhead. God is unchangeable, and at the same time an "everlasting process." The creatures are "absolutely nothing"; but at the same time "God without them would not be God," for God is love, and must objectify Himself; He is goodness, and must impart Himself. As the picture in the mind of the painter, as the poem in the mind of the poet, so was all creation in the mind of God from all eternity, in uncreated simplicity. The ideal world was not created in time; "the Father spake Himself and all the creatures in His Son"; "they exist in the eternal Now" —"a becoming without a becoming, change without change." "The Word of God the Father it the substance of all that exists, the life of all that lives, the principle and cause of life." Of creation he says : "We must not falsely imagine that God stood waiting for something to happen, that He might create the world. For so soon as He was God, so soon as He begat His coeternal and coequal Son, He created the world.""

"Eckhart recognises that it is a harder and a nobler task to preserve detachment in a crowd than in a cell; the little daily sacrifices of family life are often a greater trial than selfimposed mortifications. "We need not destroy any little good in ourselves for the sake of a better, but we should strive to grasp every truth in its highest meaning, for no one good contradicts another." "Love God, and do as you like, say the Free Spirits. Yes; but as long as you like anything contrary to God's will, you do not love Him." There is much more of the same kind in Eckhart's sermons — as good and sensible doctrine as one could find anywhere."

"The influence of Meister Eckhart is stronger today than it has been in hundreds of years. Eckhart met the problems of contingency and omnipotence, creator-and-creature-from-nothing by making God the only reality and the presence or imprint of God upon nothing, the source of reality in the creature. Reality in other words was a hierarchically structured participation of the creature in the creator. From the point of view of the creature this process could be reversed. If creatureliness is real, God becomes the Divine Nothing. God is not, as in scholasticism, the final subject of all predicates. He is being as unpredicable. The existence of the creature, in so far as it exists, is the existence of God, and the creature's experience of God is therefore in the final analysis equally unpredicable. Neither can even be described; both can only be indicated. We can only point at reality, our own or God's. The soul comes to the realization of God by knowledge, not as in the older Christian mysticism by love. Love is the garment of knowledge. The soul first trains itself by systematic unknowing until at last it confronts the only reality, the only knowledge, God manifest in itself. The soul can say nothing about this experience in the sense of defining it. It can only reveal it to others."

"I think of the marvellous history of Rheno-Flemish mysticism of the thirteenth and especially of the fourteenth centuries... Did not Eckhart teach his disciples: “All that God asks you most pressingly is to go out of yourself … and let God be God in you” [cf Walshe Sermon 13b]? One could think that in separating himself from creatures the mystic leaves his brother humanity behind. The same Eckhart affirms that on the contrary the mystic is marvelously present to them on the only level where he can truly reach them, that is, in God."

"Cui dono lepidum novum libellum Arido modo pumice expolitum?"

"Lugete, O Veneres Cupidinesque, Et quantum est hominum venustiorum. Passer mortuus est meae puellae, Passer, deliciae meae puellae."

"Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum illuc, unde negant redire quemquam."

"Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus rumoresque senum severiorum omnes unius aestimemus assis soles occidere et redire possunt: nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux, nox est perpetua una dormienda."

"Da mi basia mille, deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum."

"Quaeris, quot mihi basiationes tuae, Lesbia, sint satis superque?"

"Per caputque pedesque."

"Ipse qui sit, utrum sit an non sit, id quoque nescit."

"O quid solutis est beatius curis, cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino labore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum, desideratoque acquiescimus lecto? hoc est quod unum est pro laboribus tantis."

"Nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est."

"Ille mi par esse Deo videtur, ille, si fas est, superare Divos, qui sedens adversus identidem te spectat et audit dulce ridentem."

"Otium et reges prius et beatas perdidit urbes."

"Quid datur a divis felici optatius hora?"

"Ut flos in saeptis secretus nascitur hortis, Ignotus pecori, nullo contusus aratro, Quem mulcent aurae, firmat sol, educat imber; Multi illum pueri, multae optavere puellae."

"Nunc iam nulla viro iuranti femina credat, nulla viri speret sermones esse fideles; quis dum aliquid cupiens animus praegestit apisci, nil metuunt iurare, nihil promittere parcunt: sed simul ac cupidae mentis satiata libido est, dicta nihil metuere, nihil periuria curant."

"Omnia fanda nefanda malo permixta furore iustificam nobis mentem avertere deorum."

"Mulier cupido quod dicit amanti in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua."

"Desine de quoquam quicquam bene velle mereri, Aut aliquem fieri posse putare pium."

"Huc est mens deducta tua mea, Lesbia, culpa atque ita se officio perdidit ipsa suo, ut iam nec bene velle queat tibi, si optima fias, nec desistere amare, omnia si facias."

"Siqua recordanti benefacta priora voluptas Est homini."

"Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem."

"Si vitam puriter egi."

"Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior."

"Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus Advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias, Ut te postremo donarem munere mortis Et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem. Quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum, Heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi, Nunc tamen interea haec prisco quae more parentum Tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias, Accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu, Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale."

"Si quicquam cupido optantique optigit umquam insperanti, hoc est gratum animo proprie."

"An admirable poet. No Latin writer is so Greek. The simplicity, the pathos, the perfect grace, which I find in the great Athenian models, are all in Catullus, and in him alone of the Romans."

"It is just this quality, this clear and almost terrible simplicity, that puts Catullus in a place by himself among the Latin poets. Where others labour in the ore of thought and gradually forge it out into sustained expression, he sees with a single glance, and does not strike a second time."

"Catullus is a completely sophisticated, urbane poet, and his sophistication is sincere because his emotions were sophisticated. He expresses the spirit and essence of what we call "society"."

"Catullus was the leading representative of a revolution in poetry created by the neoteroi or "new men" in Rome. Rather than writing about battles, heroes, and the pagan gods, Catullus draws his subjects from everyday, intensely personal life."

"One often hears: that is good but it belongs to yesterday. But I say: yesterday has not yet been born. It has not yet really existed. I want Ovid, Pushkin, and Catullus to live once more, and I am not satisfied with the historical Ovid, Pushkin, and Catullus."

"It passes my comprehension why Tennyson could have called him 'tender'. He is vindictive, venomous and full of obscene malice. He is only tender about his brother and Lesbia, and in the end she gets it hot as well."

"Catullus was the first Roman who imitated with success the Greek writers, and introduced their numbers among the Latins."

"The most hard-edged and intense of the Latin poets."

"Valerium Catullum, a quo sibi versiculis de Mamurra perpetua stigmata imposita non dissimulaverat, satis facientem eadem die adhibuit cenae hospitioque patris eius, sicut consuerat, uti perseveravit."

"Tenderest of Roman poets nineteen-hundred years ago."

"Give an inch, he'll take an ell."

"To understand this for sense it is not required that a man should be a geometrician or a logician, but that he should be mad."

"The passion of laughter is nothing else but a sudden glory arising from sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmities of others, or with our own formerly..."

"...in statu naturae Mensuram juris esse Utilitatem."

"For he that hath strength enough to protect all, wants not sufficiency to oppresse all."

"Now I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark."

"I know not how the world will receive it, nor how it may reflect on those that shall seem to favor it. For in a way beset with those that contend, on one side for too great Liberty, and on the other side for too much Authority, 'tis hard to passe between the points of both unwounded."

"He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but Mankind; which though it be hard to do, harder than to learn any Language, or Science; yet, when I shall have set down my own reading orderly, and perspicuously, the pains left another, will be only to consider, if he also find not the same in himself. For this kind of Doctrine, admitteth no other Demonstration."

"Art goes... imitating that Rationall and most excellent worke of Nature, Man. For by Art is created that great Leviathan called a Common-Wealth or State, (in latine Civitas) which is but an Artificiall Man; though of greater stature and strength than the Naturall, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which the Soveraignty is an Artificiall Soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; The Magistrates, and other Officers of Judicature and Execution, artificiall Joynts; Reward and Punishment (by which fastned to the seate of the Soveraignty, every joynt and member is moved to performe his duty) are the Nerves, that do the same in the Body Naturall; The Wealth and Riches of all the particular members, are the Strength; Salus Populi (the peoples safety) its Businesse; Counsellors, by whom all things needfull for it to know, are suggested unto it, are the Memory; Equity and Lawes, an artificiall Reason and Will; Concord, Health; Sedition, Sicknesse; and Civill war, Death. Lastly, the Pacts and Covenants, by which the parts of this Body Politique were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that Fiat, or the Let us make man, pronounced by God in the Creation."

"If this superstitious fear of Spirits were taken away, and with it, Prognostiques from Dreams, false Prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which, crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be much more fitted then they are for civill Obedience."

"But all this language gotten, and augmented by Adam and his posterity, was again lost at the tower of Babel, when by the hand of God, every man was stricken for his rebellion, with an oblivion of his former language."

"A naturall foole that could never learn by heart the order of numerall words, as one, two, and three, may observe every stroak of the Clock, and nod to it, or say one, one, one; but can never know what houre it strikes."

"Understanding being nothing else, but conception caused by Speech."

"But this priviledge, is allayed by another; and that is, by the priviledge of Absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man only."

"The first cause of Absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of Method; in that they begin not their Ratiocination from Definitions; that is, from settled significations of their words: as if they could cast account, without knowing the value of the numerall words, one, two, and three."

"It is not easy to fall into any absurdity, unless it be by the length of an account; wherein he may perhaps forget what went before. For all men by nature reason alike, and well, when they have good principles. For who is so stupid as both to mistake in geometry, and also to persist in it, when another detects his error to him? By this it appears that reason is not, as sense and memory, born with us; nor gotten by experience only, as prudence is; but attained by industry: first in apt imposing of names; and secondly by getting a good and orderly method in proceeding from the elements, which are names, to assertions made by connexion of one of them to another; and so to syllogisms, which are the connexions of one assertion to another, till we come to a knowledge of all the consequences of names appertaining to the subject in hand; and that is it, men call science. And whereas sense and memory are but knowledge of fact, which is a thing past and irrevocable, science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another; by which, out of that we can presently do, we know how to do something else when we will, or the like, another time: because when we see how anything comes about, upon what causes, and by what manner; when the like causes come into our power, we see how to make it produce the like effects. Children therefore are not endued with reason at all, till they have attained the use of speech, but are called reasonable creatures for the possibility apparent of having the use of reason in time to come."

"Science is the knowledge of Consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another: by which, out of that we can presently do, we know how to do something else when we will, or the like, another time:"

"But yet they that have no Science, are in better, and nobler condition with their naturall Prudence; than men, that by their mis-reasoning, or by trusting them that reason wrong, fall upon false and absurd generall rules."

"But Aversion wee have for things, not only which we know have hurt us; but also that we do not know whether they will hurt us, or not."

"For Appetite with an opinion of attaining, is called HOPE."

"The same, without such opinion, DESPAIRE."

"Desire, to know why, and how, CURIOSITY; such as is in no living creature but Man; so that Man is distinguished, not only by his Reason; but also by this singular Passion from other Animals; in whom the appetite of food, and other pleasures of Sense, by predominance, take away the care of knowing causes; which is a Lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual and indefatigable generation of Knowledge, exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal Pleasure."

"Sudden Glory, is the passion which maketh those Grimaces called LAUGHTER."

"And Beasts that have Deliberation, must necessarily also have Will."

"For there is no such thing as perpetual Tranquility of mind, while we live here; because Life it selfe is but Motion, and can never be without Desire, nor without Feare, no more than without Sense."

"Of all Discourse, governed by desire of Knowledge, there is at last an End, either by attaining, or by giving over."

"When two, or more men, know of one and the same fact, they are said to be CONSCIOUS of it one to another; which is as much as to know it together."

"The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, prophane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame, or blame…"

"The Register of Knowledge of Fact is called History."

"The Value or WORTH of a man, is as of all other things, his Price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his Power..."

"And as in other things, so in men, not the seller, but the buyer determines the Price."

"By MANNERS, I mean not here Decency of behaviour; as how one man should salute another, or how a man should wash his mouth, or pick his teeth before company, and such other points of the Small Morals; But those qualities of mankind that concern their living together in Peace and Unity. To which end we are to consider that the Felicity of this life consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied. For there is no such Finis ultimus (utmost aim) nor Summum Bonum (greatest good) as is spoken of in the books of the old Moral Philosophers. Nor can a man any more live whose desires are at an end than he whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand."

"Felicity is a continual progress of the desire from one object to another, the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter.The cause whereof is that the object of man's desire is not to enjoy once only, and for one instant of time, but to assure forever the way of his future desire. And therefore the voluntary actions and inclinations of all men tend not only to the procuring, but also to the assuring of a contented life, and differ only in the way, which ariseth partly from the diversity of passions in diverse men, and partly from the difference of the knowledge or opinion each one has of the causes which produce the effect desired."

"So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in Death. And the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more."

"From the same it proceedeth,that men gives different names, to one and the same thing, from the difference of their own passions: As they that approve a private opinion, call it Opinion; but they that mislike it, Haeresie: and yet haeresie signifies no more than private opinion; but has only agreater tincture of choler"

"And this Feare of things invisible, is the naturall Seed of that, which every one in himself calleth Religion; and in them that worship, or feare that Power otherwise than they do, Superstition."

"The doctrine of Right and Wrong, is perpetually disputed, both by Pen and the Sword: Whereas the doctrine of Lines, and Figures, is not so; because men care not, in that subject what be truth, as a thing that crosses no mans ambition, profit, or lust. For I doubt not, but if it had been a thing contrary to any mans right of dominion, or to the interest of men that have dominion, That the three Angles of a Triangle, should be equall to two Angles of a Square; that doctrine should have been, if not disputed, yet by the burning of all books of Geometry, suppressed, as far as he whom it concerned was able."

"And in these foure things, Opinion of Ghosts, Ignorance of second causes, Devotion towards what men fear, and Taking of things Casuall for Prognostics, consisteth the Natural seed of Religion; which by reason of the different Fancies, Judgements, and Passions of severall men, hath grown up into ceremonies so different, that those which are used by one man, are for the most part ridiculous to another."

"For Prudence, is but Experience; which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto."

"For such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; Yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves: For they see their own wit at hand, and other men's at a distance."

"Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every man."

"For Warre, consisteth not in Battell onely, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to contend by Battell is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of Time, is to be considered in the nature of Warre; as it is in the nature of Weather."

"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."

"The RIGHT OF NATURE, which Writers commonly call Jus Naturale, is the Liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own Nature; that is to say, of his own Life; and consequently, of doing any thing, which in his own Judgement, and Reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto."

"And because the condition of Man, (as hath been declared in the precedent Chapter) is a condition of Warre of every one against everyone; in which case every one is governed by his own Reason; and there is nothing he can make use of, that may not be a help unto him, in preserving his life against his enemyes; It followeth, that in such a condition, every man has a Right to every thing; even to one anothers body."

"That a man be willing, when others are so too, as farre-forth, as for Peace, and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself."

"As first a man cannot lay down the right of resisting them, that assault him by force, to take away his life; because he cannot be understood to ayme thereby, at any Good to himself."

"A Covenant not to defend my selfe from force, by force, is always voyd."

"Men looke not at the greatnesse of the evill past, but the greatnesse of the good to follow."

"And seeing every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause:"

"And though this may seem to subtile a deduction of the Lawes of Nature, to be taken notice of by all men;whereof the most part are too busie in getting food, and the rest too negligent to understand; yet to leave all men unexcusable, they have been contracted into one easie sum, intelligble, even to the meanest capacity; and that is, Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thyselfe; which sheweth him, that he has no more to do in learning the Lawes of Nature, but, when weighing the actions of other men with his own, they seem too heavy, to put them into the other part of the balance, and his own into their place, that his own passions, and selfe love, may adde nothing to the weight; and then there is none of these Laws of Nature that will not appear unto him very reasonable."

"And the Science of them, is the true and onely Moral Philosophy. For Moral Philosophy is nothing else but the Science of what is Good, and Evill, in the conversation, and Society of mankind. Good, and Evill, are names that signify our Appetites, and Aversions; which in different tempers, customes, and doctrines of men, are different:"

"For the Lawes of Nature (as Justice, Equity, Modesty, Mercy, and (in summe)doing to others, as wee would be done to,) of themselves, without the terrour of some Power, to cause them to be observed, are contrary to our naturall Passions, that carry us to Partiality, Pride, Revenge, and the like. And Covenants, without the Sword, are but Words, and of no strength to secure a man at all."

""I Authorize and give up my Right of Governing my selfe, to this Man, or to his Assembly of men, on this condition, that thou that give up thy Right to him, and Authorise all his Actionsin like manner." This done, the Multitude so united in one Person, is called a COMMON-WEALTH, in latine CIVITAS. This is the Generation of that LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speake more reverently) of that Mortall God, to which we owe under the Immortal God, our peace and defence."

"As in the presence of the Master, the Servants are equall, and without any honour at all; So are the Subjects, in the presence of the Soveraign. And though they shine some more, some lesse, when they are out of his sight; yet in his presence, they shine no more than the Starres in presence of the Sun."

"From whence it follows, that were the publique and private interest are most closely united, there is the publique most advanced."

"No man is bound by the words themselves, either to kill himselfe, or any other man."

"For all uniting of strength by private men, is, if for evil intent, unjust; if for intent unknown, dangerous to the Publique, and unjustly concealed."

"For naturall Bloud is in like manner made of the fruits of the Earth; and circulating, nourisheth by the way, every Member of the Body of Man."

"But if one Subject giveth Counsell to another, to do anything contrary to the Lawes, whether that Counsell proceed from evil intention, or from ignorance onely, it is punishable by the Common-wealth; because ignorance of the Law, is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the Lawes to which he is subject."

"and where men build on false grounds, the more they build, the greater is the ruine:"

"The Interpretation of the Laws of Nature in a Common-wealth, dependeth not on the books of Moral Philosophy. The Authority of writers, without the Authority of the Commonwealth, maketh not their opinions Law, be they never so true."

"No man's error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it."

"So that every Crime is a sinne; but not every sinne a Crime."

"The source of every Crime, is some defect of the Understanding; or some error in Reasoning, or some sudden force of the Passions. Defect in the Understanding, is Ignorance; in Reasoning, Erroneous Opinion."

"Fact be vertuous, or vicious, as Fortune pleaseth;"

"As for [...] Of all passions, that which inclineth men least to break the laws is fear."

"Another doctrine repugnant to Civill Society, is that whatsoever a man does against his Conscience, is Sinne; and it dependeth on the presumption of making himself judge of Good and Evill. For a man's Conscience and his Judgement are the same thing, and as the Judgement, so also the Conscience may be erroneous."

"As also the great number of Corporations; which are as it were many lesser Common-wealths in the bowels of a greater, like wormes in the entrayles of a natural man."

"The office of the sovereign, be it a monarch or an assembly, consisteth in the end for which he was trusted with the sovereign power, namely the procuration of the safety of the people, to which he is obliged by the law of nature, and to render an account thereof to God, the Author of that law, and to none but Him. But by safety here is not meant a bare preservation, but also all other contentments of life, which every man by lawful industry, without danger or hurt to the Commonwealth, shall acquire to himself. And this is intended should be done, not by care applied to individuals, further than their protection from injuries when they shall complain; but by a general providence, contained in public instruction, both of doctrine and example; and in the making and executing of good laws to which individual persons may apply their own cases."

"Time, and Industry, produce everyday new knowledge."

"And whereas many men, by accident unevitable, become unable to maintain themselves by their labour; they ought not to be left to the Charity of private persons; but to be provided for, (as far-forth as the necessities of Nature require,) by the Lawes of the Common-wealth. For as it is Unchariablenesse in any man, to neglect the impotent; so it is in the Soveraign of a Common-wealth, to expose them to the hazard of such uncertain Charity."

"And when all the world is overcharged with Inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is Warre, which provideth for every man, by Victory or Death."

"And hereby it comes to passe, that Intemperance, is naturally punished with Diseases; Rashness, with Mischance; Injustice; with Violence of Enemies; Pride, with Ruine; Cowardice, with Oppression; Negligent government of Princes, with Rebellion; and Rebellion with Slaughter."

"To say he hath spoken to him in a Dream, is no more then to say he dreamed that God spake to him; which is not of force to win beleef from any man, that knows dreams are for the most part naturall, and may proceed from former thoughts; and such dreams as that, from selfe conceit, and foolish arrogance, and false opinion of a mans own goodlinesse, or other vertue, by which he thinks he hath merited the favour of extraordinary Revelation. To say he hath seen a Vision, or heard a Voice, is to say, that he dreamed between sleeping and waking: for in such manner a man doth many times naturally take his dream for a vision, as not having well observed his own slumbering. To say he speaks by supernaturall Inspiration, is to say he finds an ardent desire to speak, or some strong opinion of himself, for which hee can alledge no naturall and sufficient reason. So that though God Almighty can speak to a man, by Dreams, Visions, Voice, and Inspiration; yet he obliges no man to beleeve he hath so done to him that pretends it; who (being a man) may erre, and (which is more) may lie."

"And for Incoherent Speech, it was amongst the Gentiles taken for one sort of Prophecy, because the Prophets of their Oracles, intoxicated with a spirit, or vapor from the cave of the Pythian Oracle at Delphi, were for a time really mad, and spake like mad-men; of whoose loose words a sense might be made to fit any event, in such sort, as all bodies are said to be made of Materia prima."

"Power as is really divided, and as dangerously to all purposes, by sharing with another an Indirect Power, as a Direct one."

"Christian Kings may erre in deducing a Consequence, but who shall Judge?"

"For it is not the bare Words, but the Scope of the writer that giveth true light, by which any writing is to bee interpreted; and they that insist upon single Texts, without considering the main Designe, can derive no thing from them clearly; but rather by casting atomes of Scripture, as dust before mens eyes, make everything more obscure than it is; an ordinary artifice of those who seek not the truth, but their own advantage."

"For as there were Plants of Corn and Wine in small quantity Dispersed in the Fields and Woods, before men knew their vertue, or made use of them for their nourishment, or planted them apart in Fields,and also there have been divers true, generall, and profitable Speculations from the beginning; as being the naturall plants of humane Reason: But they were at first but few in number; men lived upon grosse Experience; there was no Method; that is to say, no Sowing, nor Planting of Knowledge by it self, apart from the Weeds, and common Plants of Errour and Conjecture: And the cause of it being the want of leasure from procuring the necessities of life, and defending themselves against their neighbours, it was impossible, till the erecting of great Common-wealths, it should be otherwise. Leisure is the mother of Philosophy; and Common-wealth, the mother of Peace, and Leisure: Where first were great and flourishing Cities, there was first the study of Philosophy."

"And if a man consider the original of this great Ecclesiastical Dominion, he will easily perceive, that the Papacy, is no other than the Ghost of the deceased Romane Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: For so did the Papacy start up on a Sudden out of the Ruines of that Heathen Power."

"But if it bee well considered, The praise of Ancient Authors, proceeds not from the reverence of the Dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the Living."

"For such Truth as opposeth no man's profit nor pleasure is to all men welcome."

"The thoughts are to the desires, as scouts and spies, to range abroad and find the way to the thing desired."

"In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes described the life of man as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” For most animals, especially those who have the misfortune of being tasty, this much seems true. However, for many human animals in the modern era, Hobbes’s depiction of life simply does not apply. Sadly, despite the cosmic luck that has afforded this luxurious and uniquely human lifestyle, many among us have lost our appreciation for the rarity of this phenomenon, both in the immediate sense and in the deep sense of cosmological time."

"The purpose of the ' was to expand the basis of human government; in the course of his discussion Hobbes raised many detailed questions about the . In this way he participated in the development of critical ."

"He was beloved by his lordship [Francis Bacon]... who was wont to have him walk in his delicate groves, where he did meditate; and when a notion darted into his mind, Mr. Hobbes was presently to write it down. And his Lordship was wont to say that he did it better than any one else about him; for that many times when he read their notes he scarce understood what they writ, because they understood it not clearly themselves."

"He was... 40 years old before he looked upon geometry; which happened accidentally. Being in a gentleman's library..., Euclid's Elements lay open, and 'twas the 47 El. libri I. He read the proposition. 'By G—,' sayd he (he would now and then sweare, by way of emphasis), 'this is impossible!' So he reads the demonstration of it, which referred him back to such a proposition, which proposition he read. That referred him back to another, which he also read. Et sic deinceps, that at last was demonstrably convinced of the truth. This made him in love with geometry."

"Our current conception of mathematics as an ideal science, of geometry in particular as dealing with an ideal space, rather than the actual space in which the universe is set, was a notion quite unformulated before Hobbes, and not taken seriously till the middle of the eighteenth century, though it was dimly felt after by a few Aristotelian opponents of Copernicus."

"There are, it is true, masterpieces of political philosophy in the English language: Hobbes' Leviathan is an obvious example. But the true character of this debate has been empirical: the discussion of particular and practical issues, in the course of which a clash of principle and attitude is brought out, but in which the element of abstract thought is always kept in relation to an immediate and actual situation."

"The bitterest of all quarrels was that in which Hobbes sought to defend himself against the accusations of atheistic and immoral teaching which haunted him throughout his life and persisted for decades after his death. Writers, theological and philosophical, many of them incapable of understanding Hobbes, united in these clamorous charges against him. The clergyman who wrote the "Dialogue between Philautes and Timothy" (London 1673) fairly illustrates the critics of Hobbes's own age, who believed that Hobbes had "said more for a bad life and against any other life after this than ever was pleaded by philosopher or divine to the contrary." The allusions of Locke and Berkeley to 'that atheist Hobbes' reflect the opinions of the generations following. ...Hobbes certainly teaches that there is a God, and that faith in Jesus Christ is the supreme religious duty. True, he also teaches that God is corporeal, but only in the sense in which, as he believes, men, also, are purely corporeal. However theoretically unjustified the doctrine, it is certainly compatible—as Hobbes holds it—with religious teaching. The ethics of Hobbes, also, inculcates all the practical duties of a Christian morality, though it founds them on a psychologically inadequate basis: the assumption that all men are radically selfish. In a word, Hobbes was unfairly treated; his reputation suffered unjustly; and—more unfortunate than all—the suspicion of his atheism kept people from the study of his vigorous metaphysics and his acute psychology."

"I have seen a translation by Hobbes, which I prefer for its greater clumsiness. Many years have passed since I saw it, but it made me laugh immoderately. Poetry that is not good can only make amends for that deficiency by being ridiculous..."

"Perhaps the most influential book ever written on the characteristics of men in politics is The Prince, by the great Renaissance Italian Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527). Despite its enduring popularity, fascination, and authority it is extremely one-sided and unsystematic. … More systematic in its treatment of political man than The Prince, though about equally one-sided, is Hobbes' first section of The Leviathan entitled “Of Man.” Hobbes' psychological assumptions bear a remarkable resemblance to the modern school of psychology often called Behaviorism."

"Thomas Hobbes was the first sociobiologist, two hundred years before Darwin."

"No more comprehensive, tightly structured, and closely argued political philosophy exists than Hobbes set out in Leviathan. It shocks our conventional assumptions, and it is disquieting. For the sake of peace and order, religion cannot be allowed the political power and conscientious authority it has often claimed. To cure our political ills and contain the state of war we may have to submit to governments we thoroughly dislike. The most prevalent and powerful human traits of human nature are unpleasant and socially destructive. It is this insight which touches a raw nerve of truth with so many readers. Modern man, if not all mankind, is ominously close to Hobbes's account of us—competitive, acquisitive, possessive, restless, individualistic, self-concerned, and insatiable in our demands for whatever we see in isolation as our own good. It is this point of realism which almost all other political philosophies underestimate, and which Hobbes gets memorably right in his great endeavour to deliver us from a life consistent with our own natures, and of our own making; a life which would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

"Both his works [De Cive and Leviathan] were condemned by Parliament, and "Hobbism" became, ere he died, a popular synonym for irreligion and immorality. ...Hobbes was the first great English writer who dealt with the science of government from the ground, not of tradition, but of reason. ...Hobbes ...denied the existence of the more spiritual sides of man's nature. His hard and narrow logic dissected every human custom and desire, and reduced even the most sacred to demonstrations of a prudent selfishness. Friendship was simply a sense of social utility to one another. ...Nothing better illustrates the daring with which the new skepticism was to break through the theological traditions of the older world than the pitiless logic with which Hobbes assailed the very theory of revelation."

"Can humans exist without some people ruling and others being ruled? The founders of political science did not think so. "I put for a general inclination of mankind, a perpetual and restless desire for power after power, that ceaseth only in death," declared Thomas Hobbes. Because of this innate lust for power, Hobbes thought that life before (or after) the state was a "war of every man against every man"—"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Was Hobbes right? Do humans have an unquenchable desire for power that, in the absence of a strong ruler, inevitably leads to a war of all against all? To judge from surviving examples of bands and villages, for the greater part of prehistory our kind got along quite well without so much as a paramount chief, let alone the all-powerful English leviathan King and Mortal God, whom Hobbes believed was needed for maintaining law and order among his fractious countrymen."

"The great thinker from whom the basic ideas of what we shall call constructivist rationalism received their most complete expression was René Descartes. But while he refrained from drawing the conclusions from them for social and moral arguments, these were mainly elaborated by his slightly older (but much more long-lived) contemporary, Thomas Hobbes. Although Descartes’ immediate concern was to establish criteria for the truth of propositions, these were inevitably also applied by his followers to judge the appropriateness and justification of actions."

"Although longer experience may have lent some older members of these bands some authority, it was mainly shared aims and perceptions that coordinated the activities of their members. These modes of coordination depended decisively on instincts of solidarity and altruism - instincts applying to the members of one's own group but not to others. The members of these small groups could thus exist only as such: an isolated man would soon have been a dead man. The primitive individualism described by Thomas Hobbes is hence a myth. The savage is not solitary, and his instinct is collectivist. There was never a 'war of all against all'."

"The thought has surely occurred to many people throughout the ages: what if there is an afterlife but no god? What if there is a god but no afterlife? As far as I know, the clearest writer to give expression to this problem was Thomas Hobbes in his 1651 masterwork Leviathan. I strongly recommend that you read part III, chapter 38, and part IV, chapter 44, for yourselves, because Hobbe's command of both holy scripture and the English language is quite breathtaking. He also reminds us of how perilous it was, and always has been, even to think about these things. ...Having planted the subversive thought—that forbidding Adam to eat from one tree lest he die and from another lest he live forever, is absurd and contradictory... he acknowledged the process by which people are always free to make up a religion that suits or gratifies or flatters them."

"The irony here is quite remarkable: Hobbes, who would later spend years publishing and defending numerous attempts to square the circle, published his first mathematical work as part of a campaign to silence an old circle squarer. Indeed, less than a decade after his participation in Pell's battle with Longomontanus, Hobbes would find himself involved in a prolonged and bitter controversy that centered on his claims to have squared the circle, and he would go to his grave insisting that he had solved this ancient geometrical problem."

"It was supposedly the discovery of mathematics at the age of forty that led Hobbes to attempt to cast all of philosophy on the model of geometry."

"In spite of all these points of similarity, Hobbes is not generally regarded as a liberal political theorist in the full sense of the term. Although his approach is distinctively liberal, his conclusions are not. We have seen that he views freedom as the absence of interference, and so coincides with the liberal position in this regard. In addition, he believes that the erection of government represents an increase of freedom."

"It was not until the Twelfth Century of our era that the Pentateuch as a whole was subjected to rational scrutiny. The man who undertook the ungrateful task was a learned Spanish rabbi, Abraham ben Meir ibn Esra. He unearthed many absurdities, but... it was not until five hundred years later that anything properly describable as scientific criticism... came into being. Its earliest shining lights were the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, and the Amsterdam Jew, Baruch Spinoza. ..and ever since then the Old Testament has been under searching and devastating examination."

"The pervasiveness of social dilemmas has repeatedly been recognized in the great books of political philosophy. Hobbes described such a setting as a “war of all against all.” Rousseau used a stag hunt to illustrate the problem of a group needing to all work together to hunt a large animal but facing the temptation to break up into separate groups when small animals appeared on the scene that were easy to catch. A small group could catch a rabbit, but ruined the chance for the group to obtain a large animal."

"[I]n the past two decades anthropologists have gathered data on life and death in pre-state societies rather than accepting the warm and fuzzy stereotypes. What did they find? In a nutshell: Hobbes was right, Rousseau was wrong."

"There are several passages in Hobbes's translation of Homer, which, if they had been writ on purpose to ridicule that poet, would have done very well."

"The question concerning the role of the state in preserving territorial integrity is raised by the recent events in the former Soviet Union and former Yugoslavia: why do some multinational states survive the collapse of the authoritarian regime while others do not? Except in Spain, democratization occurred until recently in countries where the integrity of the state was not problematic. The breakup of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia raises a new set of issues because there democratization unleashed movements for national independence; indeed, for some political forces, democratization is synonymous with national self-determination and the breakdown of the multinational state that was maintained by authoritarian rule. Under such conditions, Hobbes's first problem - how to avoid being killed by others - is logically and historically prior to his second problem - how to prevent people within the same community from killing one another."

"Hobbes's Leviathan is the greatest single work of political thought in the English language."

"This diplomatic revolution, part of the growing bureaucratization of government, was complemented by a revolution in political ideas that we can measure in the changing use of the term “state.” In the fourteenth century the Latin term status (and vernacular equivalents such as estat or state) was mainly used with reference to the standing of rulers themselves, much as we would today use the term “status.” Thus the chronicler Jean Froissart, describing King Edward III entertaining foreign dignitaries in 1327, recorded that his queen “was to be seen there in an estat of great nobility.” Gradually, however, usage was extended to include the institutions of government. In the works of Machiavelli, written in the 1510s, lo stato becomes an independent agent, separate from those who happen to be its rulers. In a similar vein, Thomas Starkey, the English political commentator of the 1530s, claimed that the “office and duty” of rulers was to “maintain the state established in the country” over which they ruled. The thrust of such arguments was to limit the power of kings by postulating their higher obligation to the common good. In radical hands this implied that subjects had the right to overthrow tyrannical rulers, which is what happened in the English civil wars of the 1640s and Europe’s bitter wars of religion. Responding to this crisis of governance,Thomas Hobbes moved the debate to a different level, defining the state as “an artificial man” abstractly encapsulating the whole populace, who enjoys absolute sovereignty (his “artificial soul . . . giving life and motion to the body”) which is exercised in practice through a sovereign ruler. This gradual but dramatic word shift, from the medieval state of princes to the person of the Hobbesian state, was hugely important for political thought. It also reinforced the decline of dynastic summitry: diplomacy, like governance, was no longer regarded as the sole prerogative of princes."

"The study of politics is a form of natural history. Thomas Hobbes loathed Aristotle’s politics, and in Leviathan followed Plato in modeling politics on geometry; but he admired Aristotle’s biology. One consequence of that “biological” style is important, not only because it was at odds with Hobbes’s—and Plato’s—hankering after political geometry. Aristotle claimed that political analysis should aim only “at as much precision as the subject matter permits.” Political wisdom cannot aspire to the precision of geometry, and must not pretend to. Aboriculture suggests an analogy: most trees grow best in firm soil with a moderate water supply; a few thrive with their roots in mud and water."

"The reasoning of Caligula agrees with that of Hobbes and Grotius."

"It is a remarkable fact that, in a history extending over nearly twenty-five hundred years, a considerable part of the most significant writing on political philosophy was done in two periods of only about fifty years each and in two places of quite restricted area. … The Second place was England, and the period was the half century between 1640 and 1690, which produced the works of Hobbes and Locke, together with the works of a host of lesser figures."

"Hobbes himself had experienced this truth in the terrible times of civil war, because then all legitimate and normative illusions with which men like to deceive themselves regarding political realities in periods of untroubled security vanish. If within the state there are organized parties capable of according their members more protection than the state, then the latter becomes at best an annex of such parties, and the individual citizen knows whom he has to obey."

"When Hobbes referred to the dire state of human beings in having ‘nasty, brutish and short’ lives, he also pointed, in the same sentence, to the disturbing adversity of being ‘solitary’. Escape from isolation may not only be important for the quality of human life, it can also contribute powerfully to understanding and responding to the other deprivations from which human beings suffer. There is surely a basic strength here which is complementary to the engagement in which theories of justice are involved."

"At the core of Hobbes’s theory of political authority is the provision of security. “The end of Obedience is Protection,” Hobbes insists in chapter 21 of Leviathan. The Obligation of Subjects to the Soveraign, is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth, by which he is able to protect them.” This is because “the right men have by Nature to protect themselves, when none else can protect them, can by no Covenant be relinquished.”6 The king’s rightful authority is rooted in his capacity to protect his subjects. As a result, their obligation to obey him, unqualified as it is while it lasts, expires with the king’s ability to protect them. Hobbes spelled this out even more perspicaciously in his discussion of conquest—with clear implications for what was at stake in the Engagement controversy. A person is conquered not by being slain or imprisoned. (In the latter case “he is still an Enemy, and may save himself if hee can.”) Rather, “he that upon promise of Obedience, hath his Life and Liberty allowed him, is then Conquered, and a Subject; and not before.” The long and short of it was that once Parliament had replaced the king as protector of the people of England, they owed Parliament their unqualified allegiance. Engagement was therefore legitimate. Indeed, in the circumstances after 1649, it was obligatory. And it would follow, a fortiori, that should Parliament lose the capacity to provide protection, then the obligation to Engage would cease as well. In this way, Hobbes could counsel Charles’s supporters to promise allegiance to Parliament, but they could do it in a manner that would not compromise their ability to support the king in the event of a restoration. As it turned out, making this move alienated Hobbes from many royalists—even though he offered them a doctrine that promised to get them out of a tight spot and hedge their bets for the future. Their attachment, it seems, was to Charles himself, or at least to the institution of the monarchy."

"The long life of Thomas Hobbes covers almost the whole of the most critical period alike in the growth of modern science and in the development of the British Constitution. Born in the year of the Armada, Hobbes did not die until nine years before the great Revolution which finally determined the question whether the British Islands should be ruled constitutionally or absolutely. He lived through the Stuart attempt to convert England into an absolute monarchy, the Puritan revolution and great Civil War, the political and ecclesiastical experiments of the Long Parliament and of Cromwell, the restoration of the exiled line, and the beginnings of modern Whiggism and Nonconformity. Still more remarkable were the changes which came over the face of science during the same period. When Hobbes entered the University as a lad, the sham Aristotelianism of the Middle Ages was still officially taught in its lecture-rooms; before he died, mechanical science had been placed on a secure footing by Kepler, Galileo, and Descartes, the foundations of the scientific study of physiology and magnetism had been laid by Harvey and Gilbert, the Royal Society for experimental research into nature had been incorporated for more than a generation, analytical geometry had been created by Descartes, and the calculus by Leibniz and Newton, while it was only eight years after his death that the final exposition of the new mechanical conception of the universe was given by Newton's Principia. It is only natural that a philosopher who was also a keen observer of men and affairs, living through such a period of crisis, should have made the most daring of all attempts to base the whole of knowledge on the principles of mechanical materialism, and should also have become the creator of a purely naturalistic theory of ethics and sociology."

"The first-fruits of... renewed interest in learning was an English translation of Thucydides, published in 1628-9, for the purpose, as Hobbes said at the time, of educating his readers in the true principles of statesmanship. Afterwards, when his absolutist political theories had been fully developed, he wished it to be believed that his real object had been to warn Englishmen against the dangers of democracy, by showing them how much wiser a single great statesman is than a multitude."

"Foremost among his friends stands Francis Bacon, who 'loved to converse with him,' and employed him on the translation of some of the famous Essays... into Latin. This connection can be shown to belong to the years 1621-6 when Bacon, after his political disgrace, was devoting himself entirely to scientific work... The influence of Bacon, however, has left no trace on Hobbes's own matured thought. He... has no place for 'Baconian induction' in his own conception of scientific method. Bacon's zeal for experiment, the redeeming feature in an otherwise chaotic scheme of thought, is entirely alien to the essentially deductive and systematic spirit of the Hobbian philosophy."

"At the age of forty he was, for the first time, introduced to the works of Euclid, and at once 'fell in love with geometry,' being attracted, he says, more by the rigorous manner of proof employed than by the matter of the science. (Mathematics... were then only beginning to be seriously studied in England. Hobbes tells us that in his undergraduate days geometry was still looked upon generally as a form of the 'Black Art,' and it was not until 1619 that the will of Sir Henry Savile, Warden of Merton College, established the first Professorships of Geometry and Astronomy at Oxford.)"

"Wants and possessions might have standards and limits, but pride makes property the instrument for satisfying the lust for power and social superiority. More is already on the way to an analysis of pride that was later continued by Hobbes for the case of religious election as the instrument of satisfying pride. And More, like Hobbes, despairs of finding the cure for the diseased souls in a reawakening of the life of the spirit. Hobbes devised the Leviathan as the external power that will repress the proud by force; and More devises the propertyless society as the external, institutional measure that will have to substitute for the cure of the souls. It is perhaps not needless to stress that the conception of this remedy is as un-Platonic as anything can be."

"Swift had read Hobbes, an experience not easily forgotten."

"Thomas Hobbes has always been thought of as the arch materialist, the first man to uphold go-getting as a creed. But that is a travesty of Hobbes's opinion. He was a go-getter in a sense, but it was the going, not the getting he extolled. The race had no finishing post as Hobbes conceived it. The great thing about the race was to be in it, to be a contestant in the attempt to make the world a better place, and it was a spiritual death he had in mind when he said that to forsake the course is to die. 'There is no such thing as perpetual tranquility of mind while we live here,' he told us in Leviathan, 'because life itself is but a motion and can never be without desire, or without fear, no more than without sense'; 'there can be no contentment but in proceeding.' I agree."

"Qui cecidit, stabili non erat ille gradu."

"Quae ubi poeticas Musas uidit nostro assistentes toro fletibusque meis uerba dictantes, commota paulisper ac toruis inflammata luminibus: Quis, inquit, has scenicas meretriculas ad hunc aegrum permisit accedere, quae dolores eius non modo nullis remediis fouerent, uerum dulcibus insuper alerent uenenis? Hae sunt enim quae infructuosis affectuum spinis uberem fructibus rationis segetem necant hominumque mentes assuefaciunt morbo, non liberant."

"Si operam medicantis exspectas, oportet vulnus detegas."

"Unde haud iniuria tuorum quidam familiarium quaesiuit: 'si quidem deus', inquit, 'est, unde mala? Bona uero unde, si non est?"

"Nec speres aliquid nec extimescas, exarmaueris impotentis iram; at quisquis trepidus pauet uel optat, quod non sit stabilis suique iuris, abiecit clipeum locoque motus nectit qua ualeat trahi catenam."

"Nam in omni adversitate fortunae infelicissimum est genus infortunii fuisse felicem."

"Quis est enim tam compositae felicitatis ut non aliqua ex parte cum status sui qualitate rixetur?"

"Adeo nihil est miserum nisi cum putes, contraque beata sors omnis est aequanimitate tolerantis."

"Quodsi putatis longius vitam trahi mortalis aura nominis, cum sera vobis rapiet hoc etiam dies iam vos secunda mors manet."

"O felix hominum genus, si uestros animos amor quo caelum regitur regat!"

"Qui serere ingenuum uolet agrum liberat arua prius fruticibus, falce rubos filicemque resecat, ut noua fruge grauis Ceres eat."

"Tu quoque falsa tuens bona prius incipe colla iugo retrahere: Vera dehinc animum subierint."

"Quis legem det amantibus? Maior lex amor est sibi."

"Videsne igitur quanto in caeno probra volvantur, qua probitas luce resplendeat? In quo perspicuum est numquam bonis praemia, numquam sua sceleribus deesse supplicia."

"Nam si uti corporum languor ita vitiositas quidam est quasi morbus animorum, cum aegros corpore minime dignos odio sed potius miseratione iudicemus, multo magis non insequendi sed miserandi sunt quorum mentes omni languore atrocior urguet improbitas."

"Vis aptam meritis uicem referre: Dilige iure bonos et miseresce malis."

"Video, inquam, quae sit vel felicitas vel miseria in ipsis proborum atque improborum meritis constituta."

"Quis enim cohercente in ordinem cuncta deo locus esse ullus temeritati reliquus potest?"

"Sic quae permissis fluitare videtur habenis Fors patitur frenos ipsaque lege meat."

"For when every judgement is the act of hym that judgeth, it behoveth that every man performe hys worke and purpose, not by any forayne or straunge power or facultie, but by his owne proper power, and strength."

"Music is associated not only with speculation but with morality. When rhythms and modes reach an intellect through the ear, they doubtless affect and reshape that mind according to their particular character."

"While Boethius, oppressed with fetters, expected each moment the sentence or the stroke of death, he composed, in the tower of Pavia, the Consolation Of Philosophy; a golden volume not unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully, but which claims incomparable merit from the barbarism of the times and the situation of the author."

"Throughout his life Boethius had written on a wide range of subjects: his interests included mathematics, music, philosophy and theology. But he composed his most famous work in jail while awaiting execution for his crimes. The Consolation of Philosophy attempted to place earthly troubles in a divine context. Written in the form of a dialogue between Boethius and Lady Philosophy, it asked its readers to accept that there were higher powers at work behind the vicissitudes of man’s fleeting life. In the course of his musings, he turned to the notion of fortune’s wheel. ‘So now you have committed yourself to the rule of Fortune, you must acquiesce in her ways,’ he wrote. ‘If you are trying to stop her wheel form turning, you are of all men the most obtuse.’"

"Boethius is a singular figure. Throughout the Middle Ages he was read and admired, regarded always as a devout Christian and treated almost as if he had been one of the Fathers. Yet his Consolations of Philosophy, written in 524 while he was awaiting execution, is purely Platonic; it does not prove that he was not a Christian, but it does show that pagan philosophy had a much stronger hold on him than Christian theology. Some theological works, especially one on the Trinity, which are attributed to him, are by many authorities considered to be spurious; but it was probably owing to them that the Middle Ages were able to regard him as orthodox, and to imbibe from him much Platonism which would otherwise have been viewed with suspicion. . . . The tone of the book is more like that of Plato than that of Plotinus. There is no trace of the superstition or morbidness of the age, no obsession with sin, no excessive straining after the unattainable. There is perfect philosophic calm—so much that, if the book had been written in prosperity, it might almost have been called smug. Written when it was, in prison under sentence of death, it is as admirable as the last moments of the Platonic Socrates. One does not find a similar outlook until after Newton. . . . [Boethius’s] combination with great learning and zeal for the public good was unique in that age. During the two centuries before his time and the ten centuries after it, I cannot think of any European man of learning so free from superstition and fanaticism. Nor are his merits merely negative; his survey is lofty, disinterested, and sublime. He would have been remarkable in any age; in the age in which he lived, he is utterly amazing."

"Ancient belief in a cosmos composed of spheres, producing music as angels guided them through the heavens, was still flourishing in Elizabethan times. …There is a good deal more to Pythagorean musical theory than celestial harmony. Besides the music of the celestial spheres (musica mundana), two other varieties of music were distinguished: the sound of instruments...(musica instrumentalis), and the continuous unheard music that emanated from the human body (musica humana), which arises from a resonance between the body and the soul. ...In the medieval world, the status of music is revealed by its position within the Quadrivium—the fourfold curriculum—alongside arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. Medieval students... believed all forms of harmony to derive from a common source. Before Boethius' studies in the ninth century, the idea of musical harmony was not considered independently of wider matters of celestial or ethical harmony."

"Semper ego auditor tantum? numquamne reponam Vexatus totiens rauci Theseide Cordi?"

"Difficile est saturam non scribere."

"Probitas laudatur et alget"

"Poena tamen praesens, cum tu deponis amictus turgidus et crudum pavonem in balnea portas. hinc subitae mortes atque intestata senectus; it nova nec tristis per cunctas fabula cenas: ducitur iratis plaudendum funus amicis."

"Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas."

"Nemo repente fuit turpissimus."

"Me nemo ministro fur erit, atque ideo nulli comes exeo."

"What's Rome to me, what business have I there? I who can neither lie, nor falsely swear? Nor praise my patron's undeserving rhymes, Nor yet comply with him, nor with his times?"

"Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se, quam quod ridiculos homines facit."

"Haut facile emergunt quorum virtutibus opstat res angusta domi."

"Hic vivimus ambitiosa paupertate omnes."

"The question is not put how far extends His piety, but what he yearly spends; Quick, to the business; how he lives and eats; How largely gives; how splendidly he treats; How many thousand acres feed his sheep; What are his rents; what servants does he keep? The account is soon cast up; the judges rate Our credit in the court by our estate."

"Nemo malus felix."

"Vitam impendere vero."

"Hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas."

"Nunc patimur longae pacis mala, saevior armis luxuria incubuit victumque ulciscitur orbem."

"Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

"Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus."

"Summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas."

"Nam si tibi sidera cessant, nil faciet longi mensura incognita nervi, quamvis te nudum spumanti Virro labello viderit et blandae adsidue densaeque tabellae sollicitent, autos gar ephelketai andra kinaidos."

"Quanto delphinis ballaena Britannica maior."

"Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator."

"Nam qui dabat olim imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses."

"Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano."

"Multi committunt eadem diverso crimina fato: Ille crucem sceleris pretium tulit, hic diadema."

"Indica tigris agit rabida cum tigride pacem perpetuam, saevis inter se convenit ursis."

"Fati valet hora benigni."

"If perchance there should be foolish speakers who, together with those ignorant of all mathematics, will take it upon themselves to decide concerning these things, and because of some place in the Scriptures wickedly distorted to their purpose, should dare to assail this my work, they are of no importance to me, to such an extent do I despise their judgment as rash. For it is not unknown that Lactantius, the writer celebrated in other ways but very little in mathematics, spoke somewhat childishly of the shape of the earth when he derided those who declared the earth had the shape of a ball. So it ought not to surprise students if such should laugh at us also. Mathematics is written for mathematicians to whom these our labors, if I am not mistaken, will appear to contribute something even to the ecclesiastical state the headship of which your Holiness now occupies.(Author's preface to de revolutionibus)"

"Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe. All this is suggested by the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if only we face the facts, as they say, "with both eyes open.""

"To know the mighty works of God, to comprehend His wisdom and majesty and power; to appreciate, in degree, the wonderful workings of His laws, surely all this must be a pleasing and acceptable mode of worship to the Most High, to whom ignorance cannot be more grateful than knowledge."

"Neque enim ita mihi mea placent, ut non perpendam, quid alii de illis iudicaturi sint. Et quamvis sciam, hominis philosophi cogitationes esse remotas à iudicio vulgi, propterea quòd illius studium sit veritatem omnibus in rebus, quatenus id à Deo rationi humanæ permissum est, inquirere, tamen alienas prorsus à rectitudine opiniones fugiendas censeo. Itaque cum mecum ipse cogitarem, quàm absurdum ἀκρόαμα existimaturi essent illi, qui multorum seculorum iudiciis hanc opinionem confirmatam norunt, quòd terra immobilis in medio cœli, tanquam centrum illius posita sit, si ego contra assererem terram moveri..."

"When, therefore, I had long considered this uncertainty of traditional mathematics, it began to weary me that no more definite explanation of the movement of the world-machine established in our behalf by the best and most systematic builder of all, existed among the philosophers who had studied so exactly in other respects the minutest details in regard to the sphere. Wherefore I took upon myself the task of re-reading the books of all the philosophers which I could obtain, to seek out whether any one had ever conjectured that the motions of the spheres of the universe were other than they supposed who taught mathematics in the schools. And I found first, that, according to Cicero, Nicetas [assumed by modern editors to mean Hicetas] had thought the earth was moved. Then later I discovered, according to Plutarch, that certain others had held the same opinion. ... When from this, therefore, I had conceived its possibility, I myself also began to meditate upon the mobility of the earth. And although the opinion seemed absurd, yet because I knew the liberty had been accorded to others before me of imagining whatsoever circles they pleased to explain the phenomena of the stars, I thought I also might readily be allowed to experiment whether, by supposing the earth to have some motion, stronger demonstrations than those of the others could be found as to the revolution of the celestial sphere. Thus, supposing these motions which I attribute to the earth later on in this book, I found at length by much and long observation, that if the motions of the other planets were added to the rotation of the earth and calculated as for the revolution of that planet, not only the phenomena of the others followed from this, but also it so bound together both the order and magnitude of all the planets and the spheres and the heaven itself, that in no single part could one thing be altered without confusion among the other parts and in all the universe. Hence for this reason in the course of this work I have followed this system."

"Nor do I doubt that skilled and scholarly mathematicians will agree with me if, what philosophy requires from the beginning, they will examine and judge, not casually but deeply, what I have gathered together in this book to prove these things. ...Mathematics is written for mathematicians, to whom these my labours, if I am not mistaken, will appear to contribute something. ...What... I may have achieved in this, I leave to the decision of your Holiness especially, and to all other learned mathematicians. ...If perchance there should be foolish speakers who, together with those ignorant of all mathematics, will take it upon themselves to decide concerning these things, and because of some place in the Scriptures wickedly distorted to their purpose, should dare to assail this my work, they are of no importance to me, to such an extent do I despise their judgment as rash."

"Those who devised the eccentrics seen thereby in large measure to have solved the problem of apparent motions with approximate calculations. But meanwhile they introduced a good many ideas which apparently contradict the first principles of uniform motion. Nor could they elicit or deduce from the eccentrics the principal consideration, that is, the structure of the universe and the true symmetry of its parts. On the contrary, their experience was just like someone taking from various places hands, feet, a head, and other pieces, very well depicted it may be, but for the representation of a single person; since these fragments would not belong to one another at all, a monster rather than a man would be put together from them."

"What indeed is more beautiful than heaven, which of course contains all things of beauty."

"For when a ship is floating calmly along, the sailors see its motion mirrored in everything outside, while on the other hand they suppose that they are stationary, together with everything on board. In the same way, the motion of the earth can unquestionably produce the impression that the entire universe is rotating."

"We are taught all this [the motion of the earth on its axis and around the sun] by the order of succession, in which those phenomena (various planetary happenings) follow each other, and by the harmony of the world, if we will only, as the saying goes, look at the matter with both eyes."

"Hence I feel no shame in asserting that this whole region engirdled by the moon, and the center of the earth, traverse this grand circle amid the rest of the planets in an annual revolution around the sun. Near the sun is the center of the universe. Moreover, since the sun remains stationary, whatever appears as a motion of the sun is really due rather to the motion of the earth."

"At rest, however, in the middle of everything is the sun. For, in this most beautiful temple, who would place this lamp in another or better position than that from which it can light up the whole thing at the same time? For, the sun is not inappropriately called by some people the lantern of the universe, its mind by others, and its ruler by still others. The Thrice Greatest labels it a visible god, and Sophocles' Electra, the all-seeing. Thus indeed, as though seated on a royal throne, the sun governs the family of planets revolving around it."

"We find then in this arrangement an admirable harmony of the world, and a dependable, harmonious interconnexion of the motion and the size of the paths, such as otherwise cannot be discovered. For here the penetrating observer can note why the forward and the retrograde movement of Jupiter appears greater than that of Saturn, and smaller than that of Mars, and again greater with Venus than with Mercury; and why such retrogression appears oftener with Saturn than with Jupiter, less often with Mars and Venus than with Mercury. Moreover, why Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, when they rise in the evening, appear greater than when they disappear and reappear [with the sun] . . . And all this results from the same cause, namely the motion of the earth."

"The forward and backward arcs appear greater in Jupiter than in Saturn and smaller than in Mars, and on the other hand greater in Venus than in Mercury. This reversal in direction appears more frequently in Saturn than in Jupiter, and also more rarely in Mars and Venus than in Mercury. Moreover, when Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars rise at sunset, they are nearer to the earth than when they set in the evening or appear at a later hour. But Mars in particular, when it shines all night, seems to equal Jupiter in size, being distinguished only by its reddish color. Yet in the other configurations it is found barely among the stars of the second magnitude, being recognized by those who track it with assiduous observations. All these phenomena proceed from the same cause, which is the earth's motion. Yet none of these phenomena appears in the fixed stars. This proves their immense height, which makes even the sphere of the annual motion, or its reflection, vanish from before our eyes. For, every visible object has some measure of distance beyond which it is no longer seen, as is demonstrated in optics. From Saturn, the highest of the planets, to the sphere of the fixed stars there is an additional gap of the largest size. This is shown by the twinkling lights of the stars. By this token in particular they are distinguished from the planets, for there had to be a very great difference between what moves and what does not move. So vast, without any question, is the divine handiwork of the most excellent Almighty."

"To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge."

"Therefore alongside the ancient hypotheses, which are no more probable, let us permit these new hypotheses also to become known, especially since they are admirable as well as simple and bring with them a huge treasure of very skillful observations. So far as hypotheses are concerned, let no one expect anything certain from astronomy, which cannot furnish it, lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose, and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it."

"The nationality question has been a subject of various writings; an honoring controversy over the claim to the founder of our current world view is conducted between Poles and Germans, but as already mentioned nothing certain can be determined concerning the nationality of Copernicus' parents; the father seems to have been of Slavic birth, the mother German; he was born in a city whose municipal authorities and educated inhabitants were Germans, but which at the time of his birth was under Polish rule; he studied at the Polish capital, Krakau, then in Italy, and lived out his days as a canon in Frauenburg; he wrote Latin and German. In science, he is a man who belongs to no single nation, whose labors and strivings belong to the whole world, and in C. we do not honor the Pole nor the German, but the man of free spirit, the great astronomer, the father of the new astronomy, the originator of the true Weltanschauung (world view)."

"The division of the seamless garment of Christendom into separate nations or sovereign states, which today we accept as a matter of course, was then only beginning. And the idea that people belong to all sorts of different races, with boasts of racial "purity" or "superiority", is something that has come up practically within the memories of people still alive. Hence if the astronomer had been asked concerning his race and nation, he might have replied that he was a loyal son of the Churchbut otherwise would scarcely have understood the questions. Even for us today it is not an easy question to answer. Torun was founded by Germans; its leading citizens, like those of Cracow, were mostly Germans. Hence the astronomer may well have been of German extraction.[http://books.google.com/books?as_brr=0&id=plI3AAAAIAAJ&dq=author%3A%22Angus+Armitage%22&q=of+German+extraction&pgis=1#search The possible connection of the family on both sides with Silesia does not prove much either way for its population was a mixed one. On the other hand, the ancestors, especially on the father's side, must have lived for so many generations under allegiance to the King of Poland as to be, for all practical purposes, Poles. And Copernicus followed the family tradition in siding with the Poles against the Germans in times of crisis. In any case, it was Poland, and Cracow above all, that first nourished the youthful genius of Copernicus. And since his death it is chiefly the Poles who have gloried in their share in him, and have cherished the renown his achievements have brought to their heroic and ill-starred nation."

"In our time Nicholas Copernicus may not undeservedly be called a second Ptolemy. Through observations made by himself he discovered certain gaps in Ptolemy, and he concluded that the hypotheses formulated by Ptolemy admit something unsuitable in violation of the axioms of mathematics. Moreover, he found the Alfonsine computations in disagreement with the motions of the heavens. Therefore, with wonderful intellectual acumen he formulated different hypotheses. He restored the science of the heavenly motions in such a way that nobody before him reasoned more accurately about the movements of the heavenly bodies."

"He was a man of grave and cultivated mind, of rapid and mature intelligence; inferior to no preceding astronomer, unless in order of succession and time ; a man, who in natural ability was far superior to Ptolemy, Hipparchus, Eudoxus, and all those others who followed in their footsteps. What he was, he became through having liberated himself from certain false axioms of the common and vulgar philosophy — I will not say blindness. Nevertheless, he did not depart far from them ; because, studying mathematics rather than Nature, he failed to penetrate and dig deep enough altogether to cut away the roots of incongruous and vain principles, and thus, removing perfectly all opposing difficulties, free himself and others from so many empty investigations into things obvious and unchangeable. In spite of all this, who can sufficiently praise the magnanimity of this Pole, who, having little regard to the foolish multitude, stood firm against the torrent of contrary opinion, and, although well-nigh unarmed with living arguments, resuming those rusty and neglected fragments which antiquity had transmitted to him, polished, repaired, and put them together with reasonings more mathematical than philosophical ; and so rendered that cause formerly contemned and contemptible, honourable, estimable, more probable than its rival, and certainly convenient and expeditious for purposes of theory and calculation ? Thus this Teuton, although with means insufficient to vanquish, overthrow, and suppress falsehood, as well as resist it, nevertheless resolutely determined in his own mind, and openly confessed this final and necessary conclusion : that it is more possible that this globe should move with regard to the universe, than that the innumerable multitude of bodies, many of which are known to be greater and more magnificent than our earth, should be compelled, in spite of Nature and reason, which, by means of motions evident to the senses, proclaim the contrary, to acknowledge this globe as the centre and base of their revolutions and influences. Who then will be so churlish and discourteous towards the efforts of this man, as to cover with oblivion all he has done, by being ordained of the Gods as an Aurora - which was to precede the rising of this Sun of the true, ancient philosophy, buried during so many centuries in the tenebrous caverns of blind, malignant, froward, envious ignorance ; and, taking note only of what he failed to accomplish, rank him amongst the number of the herded multitude, which discourses, guides itself, precipitates to destruction, according to the oral sense of a brutal and ignoble belief, rather than amongst those who, by the use of right reason, have been able to rise up, and resume the true course under the faithful guidance of the eye of divine intelligence."

"To follow Ptolemy in ancient times meant merely to reject the cumbrous crystalline spheres. To follow Copernicus was a far more radical step, it meant to reject the whole prevailing conception of the universe."

"He had himself become convinced that the whole universe was made of numbers, hence whatever was mathematically true was really or astronomically true. Our earth was no exception it, too, was essentially geometrical in nature therefore the principle of relativity of mathematical values applied to man's domain just as to any other part of the astronomical realm. The transformation to the new world-view, for him, was nothing but a mathematical reduction... of a complex geometrical labyrinth into a beautifully simple and harmonious system."

"Copernicus had formed a rudimentary conception of scientific hypothesis, accommodated to his new astronomical method. A true hypothesis is one which binds together rationally... things which had before been held distinct; it reveals the reason, in terms of that which unites them, why they are as they are."

"The Copernican theory contains many absurd or erroneous assertions."

"Copernicus entered the University of Bologna, as a student of canon law, at the opening of the winter term of 1496-7. The occurrence of his name in the annals of the 'Natio Germanorum' must be regarded as a strong point in favour of the upholders of his Teutonic origin. Indeed, taken in connexion with his unquestioned use of German as his mother-tongue, it might — at least by impartial outsiders possessing intelligence of the ordinary blunt, though serviceable type — be fairly held to terminate the controversy. This, however, seems beyond hope. Controversies rarely die save of inanition. For adverse facts they not unfrequently prove to have the digestion of ostriches. And in the present instance, where common sense and technical argument might be said to be arrayed one against the other, it is plain that the view taken depends, in great measure, upon the natural bias of the mind."

"He is the supreme example of a man who revolutionized science by looking at the old facts in a new way."

"What Luther's burning of the Papal Bull was in the religious field, in the field of natural science was the great work of Copernicus, in which he, although timidly... threw down a challenge to ecclesiastical superstition. From then on natural science was in essence emancipated from religion, although the complete settlement of accounts in all details has gone on to the present day and in many minds is still far from being complete. But from then on the development of science went forward with giant strides, increasing, so to speak, proportionately to the square of the distance in time from its point of departure, as if it wanted to show the world that for the motion of the highest product of organic matter, the human mind, the law that holds good is the reverse of that for the motion of inorganic matter."

"[Copernicus] did not ignore the Bible, but he knew very well that if his doctrine were proved, then it could not contradict the Scriptures when they were rightly understood."

"It was Copernicus who by his work showed us how fragile time-honored scientific conceptions can be."

"Of all discoveries and opinions, none may have exerted a greater effect on the human spirit than the doctrine of Copernicus. The world had scarcely become known as round and complete in itself when it was asked to waive the tremendous privilege of being the center of the universe. Never, perhaps, was a greater demand made on mankind — for by this admission so many things vanished in mist and smoke! What became of our Eden, our world of innocence, piety and poetry; the testimony of the senses; the conviction of a poetic — religious faith? No wonder his contemporaries did not wish to let all this go and offered every possible resistance to a doctrine which in its converts authorized and demanded a freedom of view and greatness of thought so far unknown, indeed not even dreamed of."

"I thought that this auction with other nations for geniuses and heroes, for merits and cultural achievement, was really quite awkward from the point of view of propaganda tactics because with our half-French Chopin and not quite native Copernicus, we cannot compete with the Italians, French, Germans, English, or Russians. Therefore, it is exactly this approach that condemns us to inferiority."

"The beginning of astronomy, except observations, I think is not to be derived from farther time than from Nicolaus Copernicus; who in the age next preceding the present revived the opinion of Pythagoras, Aristarchus, and Philolaus."

"To reassert the reign of beauty, Copernicus goes back to what he had once called "the first principles of uniform motion." He rejects non-uniformities and inconsistancies of motion - his "mind shudders" at the very consideration of them - and even at the cost of setting the earth in motion, he arrives at a system that has all the earmarks of divine handicraft; the s are gone, the phenomena are saved; the whole system has symmetry, parsimony, necessity. ... The device of uniform motion in a circle was not forced by the data; and as Kepler's ellipses showed later, it was not even the most functional device from the mathematical point of view. Yet the metaphor of uniform circular motion as the divine key... - even as in antiquity - had infected the thinking from which the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century came. ...the function of a metaphor ..."can be a restructuring of the world," in the words of Sir Ernst Gombrich."

"Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo were ‘revisionists’ in rejecting the geocentric system of Ptolemy (which held sway for some 1500 years) and, against an oppressive and repressive mainstream opinion (and officialdom), reinstated—with improvements—the heliocentric system of Aristarchos of Samos (3rd cent BCE)."

"When printed, the book was accepted by the holy Church and it has been read and studied by everyone without the faintest hint of any objection ever being conceived against its doctrines. Yet now that manifest experiences and necessary proofs have shown them to be well grounded, persons exist who would strip the author of his reward without so much as looking at his book."

"The fool will upset the whole science of astronomy."

"Certain people believe it is a marvelous achievement to extol so crazy a thing, like that Polish astronomer who makes the earth move and the sun stand still. Really, wise governments ought to repress impudence of mind."

"If Tellus winged be, The earth a motion round; Then much deceived are they Who nere before it found. Solomon was the wisest, His wit nere this attained; Cease, then, Copernicus, Thy hypothesis is vain."

"It gave me pleasure to contemplate the right of the Polish nobleman to upset with his simple veto the determinations of a [parliamentary] session; and the Pole Copernicus seemed to have made of this right against the determinations and presentations of other people, the greatest and worthiest use."

"On the five-hundred-thirtieth anniversary of the birth, and the four-hundred-sixtieth anniversary of the death, of Mikołaj Kopernik, the Senate of the Polish Republic expresses its highest esteem and praise for this exceptional Pole, one of the greatest scientists in world history. Mikołaj Kopernik, world-famous astronomer and author of the landmark work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, "stopped the Sun and moved the Earth." He distinguished himself for Poland as an exceptional mathematician, economist, lawyer, physician and priest, as well as defender of Olsztyn Castle during the Polish-Teutonic war. May the memory of his achievements endure and be a source of inspiration to future generations."

"Poles and Germans have a common history of great scientists: Today we no longer perceive Copernicus, Hevelius, Schopenhauer and Fahrenheit as the property of one nation but as representatives of one transnational culture."

"It was not only... with classical antiquity that Copernicus showed himself a man of the Renaissance. He also strove to achieve the many-sided accomplishments of that humanistic ideal, the universal man. He was competent in canon law; he practiced medicine; he wrote a tract on coinage; he served his cathedral chapter as an administrator and diplomatic representative; he painted his own portrait; he made many of his own astronomical instruments; and he established the heliocentric system on a firm basis."

"Germans and Poles have bitterly disputed the question of Copernicus's ethnic origin, each national group claiming the distinguished astronomer for its own. Where does the truth lie in this controversy? Politically, Copernicus was a subject of the king of Poland; he remained loyal to the Roman Catholic church ; and he wrote chiefly in Latin, but a few of his private letters were composed in German."

"Copernicus made his revolutionary suggestion on purely theoretical grounds. The invention of the telescope came after and not before, the publication of his great work. This is a fact upon which we may well ponder, for it shows that the insight into natural phenomena has come as much from the genius of the theoretical as from that of the experimental and observational investigator."

"Res est solliciti plena timoris amor."

"Iam seges est ubi Troia fuit."

"Tarde quae credita laedunt credimus."

"Exitus acta probat."

"Abeunt studia in mores."

"Siquis amat quod amare iuvat, feliciter ardens Gaudeat, et vento naviget ille suo. At siquis male fert indignae regna puellae, Ne pereat, nostrae sentiat artis opem."

"Principiis obsta; sero medicina paratur Cum mala per longas convaluere moras."

"Qui finem quaeris amoris, Cedit amor rebus; res age, tutus eris."

"Di pia facta vident."

"Est deus in nobis; agitante calescimus illo: impetus hic sacrae semina mentis habet."

"Conscia mens recti famae mendacia risit"

"Militat omnis amans"

"Qui nolet fieri desidiosus, amet!"

"Procul omen abesto!"

"Aequo animo poenam, qui meruere, ferunt."

"Quod licet ingratum est. Quod non licet acrius urit."

"Cui peccare licet, peccat minus."

"Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata."

"Sic ego nec sine te nec tecum vivere possum."

"Spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsae."

"Nocte latent mendae, vitioque ignoscitur omni, Horaque formosam quamlibet illa facit."

"Aut non rem temptes aut perfice."

"Iuppiter ex alto periuria ridet amantum."

"Expedit esse deos, et, ut expedit, esse putemus."

"Neque enim lex aequior ulla est, Quam necis artifices arte perire sua."

"Intret amicitiae nomine tectus amor."

"Ut ameris, amabilis esto."

"Forma bonum fragile est."

"Si nec blanda satis, nec erit tibi comis amanti, Perfer et obdura: postmodo mitis erit. Flectitur obsequio curvatus ab arbore ramus: Frangis, si vires experiere tuas. Obsequio tranantur aquae: nec vincere possis Flumina, si contra, quam rapit unda, nates."

"Pauperibus vates ego sum, quia pauper amavi; Cum dare non possem munera, verba dabam."

"Cede repugnanti; cedendo victor abibis."

"Militiae species amor est."

"Dum novus errat amor, vires sibi colligat usu: Si bene nutrieris, tempore firmus erit. Quem taurum metuis, vitulum mulcere solebas: Sub qua nunc recubas arbore, virga fuit: Nascitur exiguus, sed opes adquirit eundo, Quaque venit, multas accipit amnis aquas."

"Nil adsuetudine maius."

"Da requiem: requietus ager bene credita reddit"

"Quod male fers, adsuesce, feres bene."

"Utendum est aetate: cito pede labitur aetas."

"Nostra sine auxilio fugiunt bona; carpite florem, Qui, nisi carptus erit, turpiter ipse cadet."

"Continua messe senescit ager."

"Casus ubique valet; semper tibi pendeat hamus Quo minime credas gurgite, piscis erit."

"Candida pax homines, trux decet ira feras."

"Est deus in nobis, et sunt commercia caeli: Sedibus aetheriis spiritus ille venit."

"Chaos, rudis indigestaque moles."

"Sanctius his animal mentisque capacius altae Deerat adhuc et quod dominari in cetera posset: Natus homo est."

"Pronaque quum spectent animalia cetera terram, Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus."

"Tum pater omnipotens misso perfregit Olympum fulmine et excussit subiectae Pelion Ossae."

"Materiam superabat opus"

"Medio tutissimus ibis."

"Inopem me copia fecit."

"Causa latet, vis est notissima"

"Fas est et ab hoste doceri."

"qui, quoniam prohibent anni bellare, loquendo pugnat et incessit scelerataque devovet arma."

"Usus communis aquarum est. Nec solem proprium natura nec aera fecit nec tenues undas"

"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor."

"Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes."

"Insruit et natum: Medioque ut limite curras, Icare, ait, moneo. Ne, si demissior ibis, Unda gravet pennas; si celsior, ignis adurat. Inter utrumque vola."

"Ille quidem est oculis quamvis formosus iniquis"

"Sunt superis sua iura"

"Supremum vale."

"Quae mea culpa tamen? Nisi si lusisse vocari culpa potest, nisi culpa potest et amasse vocari."

"Ars adeo latet arte sua."

"Nam genus et proavos et quae non fecimus ipsi, Vix ea nostra voco."

"Tibi dextera bello utilis: ingenium est, quod eget moderamine nostro; tu vires sine mente geris, mihi cura futuri; tu pugnare potes, pugnandi tempora mecum eligit Atrides; tu tantum corpore prodes, nos animo; quantoque ratem qui temperat, anteit remigis officium, quanto dux milite maior, tantum ego te supero; nec non in corpore nostro pectora sunt potiora manu: vigor omnis in illis."

"Invia virtuti nulla est via!"

"Ego pulveris hausti ostendens cumulum, quot haberet corpora pulvis, tot mihi natales contingere vana rogavi; excidit, ut peterem iuvenes quoque protinus annos."

"Parcite, mortales, dapibus temerare nefandis corpora! sunt fruges, sunt deducentia ramos pondere poma suo tumidaeque in vitibus uvae, sunt herbae dulces, sunt quae mitescere flamma mollirique queant; nec vobis lacteus umor eripitur, nec mella thymi redolentia florem: prodiga divitias alimentaque mitia tellus suggerit atque epulas sine caede et sanguine praebet."

"Heu quantum scelus est in viscera viscera condi ingestoque avidum pinguescere corpore corpus alteriusque animans animantis vivere leto! Scilicet in tantis opibus, quas, optima matrum, terra parit, nil te nisi tristia mandere saevo vulnera dente iuvat ritusque referre Cyclopum, nec, nisi perdideris alium, placare voracis et male morati poteris ieiunia ventris!"

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit."

"Tempus edax rerum."

"Nec species sua cuique manet, rerumque novatrix ex aliis alias reparat natura figuras: nec perit in toto quicquam, mihi credite, mundo, sed variat faciemque novat, nascique vocatur incipere esse aliud, quam quod fuit ante, morique desinere illud idem. cum sint huc forsitan illa, haec translata illuc, summa tamen omnia constant."

"Nomenque erit indelebile nostrum."

"Carmina proveniunt animo deducta sereno."

"Donec eris sospes, multos numerabis amicos: tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris."

"Horrea formicae tendunt ad inania numquam: nullus ad amissas ibit amicus opes."

"Crede mihi, bene qui latuit bene vixit, et intra Fortunam debet quisque manere suam."

"Quo quisque est maior, magis est placabilis irae, et faciles motus mens generosa capit. corpora magnanimo satis est prostrasse leoni, pugna suum finem, cum iacet hostis, habet: at lupus et turpes instant morientibus ursi et quaecumque minor nobilitate fera. maius apud Troiam forti quid habemus Achille? Dardanii lacrimas non tulit ille senis."

"Vivere me dices, sed sic ut vivere nolim"

"Estque pati poenam quam meruisse minus."

"Difficile est, fateor, sed tendit in ardua virtus et talis meriti gratia maior erit."

"Turpe quidem dictu, sed, si modo vera fatemur, vulgus amicitias utilitate probat."

"Nec facile invenias multis in milibus unum, virtutem pretium qui putet esse sui. ipse decor, recte facti si praemia desint, non movet, et gratis paenitet esse probum. nil nisi quod prodest carum est."

"Adde quod ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes emollit mores nec sinit esse feros."

"Laeta fere laetus cecini, cano tristia tristis."

"The fittest for my wound, Who best the gentle passions knows to move; Ovid, the soft philosopher of love: His Love Epistles for my friends I chose; For there I found the kindred of my woes."

"One often hears: that is good but it belongs to yesterday. But I say: yesterday has not yet been born. It has not yet really existed. I want Ovid, Pushkin, and Catullus to live once more, and I am not satisfied with the historical Ovid, Pushkin, and Catullus."

"Here are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovidius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso, but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention?"

"To my fancy, the first poet of all antiquity."

"The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid. I hope my passion for Rome's past has not impaired my judgement, for I do honestly believe that no country has ever been greater or purer than ours or richer in good citizens and noble deeds..."

"Aetolos Acarnanas Macedonas, eiusdem linguae homines, leues ad tempus ortae causae diiungunt coniunguntque: cum alienigenis, cum barbaris aeternum omnibus Graecis bellum est eritque; natura enim, quae perpetua est, non mutabilibus in diem causis hostes sunt..."

"Rome has grown since its humble beginnings that it is now overwhelmed by its own greatness."

"I shall find antiquity a rewarding study, if only because, while I am absorbed in it, I shall be able to turn my eyes from the troubles which for so long have tormented the modern world."

"Nec vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus"

"This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions."

"Vulgatior fama est ludibrio fratris Remum novos transiluisse muros; inde ab irato Romulo, cum verbis quoque increpitans adiecisset 'sic deinde, quicumque alius transiliet moenia mea', interfectum."

"The old Romans all wished to have a king over them because they had not yet tasted the sweetness of freedom."

"Before anything else [Numa] decided that he must instill in his subjects the fear of the gods, this being the most effective measure with an ignorant, and at that time uncultured, people."

"Law is a thing which is insensible, and inexorable, more beneficial and more profitious to the weak than to the strong; it admits of no mitigation nor pardon, once you have overstepped its limits."

"Shared danger is the strongest of bonds; it will keep men united in spite of mutual dislike and suspicion."

"Fame opportunely despised often comes back redoubled."

"From abundance springs satiety."

"The troubles which have come upon us always seem more serious than those which are only threatening."

"Passions are generally roused from great conflict."

"Nature has ordained that the man who is pleading his own cause before a large audience, will be more readily listened to than he who has no object in view other than the public benefit."

"Potius sero quam nunquam."

"Vos telis hostium estis indefensi, inulti? quid igitur arma habetis, aut quid ultro bellum intulistis, in otio tumultuosi, in bello segnes? quid hic stantibus spei est? an deum aliquem protecturum uos rapturumque hinc putatis? ferro via facienda est. hac qua me praegressum uideritis, agite, qui uisuri domos parentes coniuges liberos estis, ite mecum. non murus nec uallum sed armati armatis obstant. virtute pares, necessitate, quae ultimum ac maximum telum est, superiores estis'."

"There is nothing man will not attempt when great enterprises hold out the promise of great rewards."

"Favor and honor sometimes fall more fitly on those who do not desire them."

"Toil and pleasure, dissimilar in nature, are nevertheless united by a certain natural bond."

"There are laws for peace as well as war."

"Fortune blinds men when she does not wish them to withstand the violence of her onslaughts."

"Vae victis!"

"No one wants to be excelled by his relatives."

"The result showed that fortune helps the brave."

"Envy like fire always makes for the highest points."

"They are more than men at the outset of their battles; at the end they are less than the women."

"Luck is of little moment to the great general, for it is under the control of his intellect and his judgment."

"He would not anticipate those counsels which are rather bestowed by circumstances on men, than by men on circumstances."

"He will have true glory who despises it."

"Truth, they say, is but too often in difficulties, but is never finally suppressed."

"All things will be clear and distinct to the man who does not hurry; haste is blind and improvident."

"We do not learn this only from the event, which is the master of fools."

"You know how to vanquish, Hannibal, but you do not know how to profit from victory."

"They lived under a just and moderate government, and they admitted that one bond of their fidelity was that their rulers were the better men."

"Notissimum [...] malum maxime tolerabile"

"The name of freedom regained is sweet to hear."

"It is easy at any moment to surrender a large fortune; to build one up is a difficult and an arduous task."

"Such is the nature of crowds: either they are humble and servile or arrogant and dominating. They are incapable of making moderate use of freedom, which is the middle course, or of keeping it."

"Many things complicated by nature are restored by reason."

"In difficult and desperate cases, the boldest counsels are the safest."

"Under the influence of fear, which always leads men to take a pessimistic view of things, they magnified their enemies’ resources, and minimized their own."

"Men are only too clever at shifting blame from their own shoulders to those of others."

"I approach these questions unwillingly, as it wounds, but no cure can be effected without touching upon and handling them."

"The populace is like the sea, motionless in itself, but stirred by every wind, even the lightest breeze."

"No crime can ever be defended on rational grounds."

"Temerity is not always successful."

"There is always more spirit in attack than in defense."

"Greater is our terror of the unknown."

"Men are slower to recognise blessings than misfortunes."

"Nowhere are our calculations more frequently upset than in war."

"Better and safer is an assured peace than a victory hoped for. The one is in your own power, the other is in the hands of the gods."

"It is easier to criticize than to correct our past errors."

"It is when fortune is the most propitious that she is least to be trusted."

"Good fortune and a good disposition are rarely given to the same man."

"We feel public misfortunes just so far as they affect our private circumstances, and nothing of this nature appeals more directly to us than the loss of money."

"No law is sufficiently convenient to all."

"No law can possibly meet the convenience of every one: we must be satisfied if it be beneficial on the whole and to the majority."

"The state is suffering from two opposite vices, avarice and luxury; two plagues which, in the past, have been the ruin of every great empire."

"It is better that a guilty man should not be brought to trial than that he should be acquitted."

"There is nothing worse than being ashamed of parsimony or poverty."

"For he considered that, in many cases, but especially in war, mere appearances have had all the effect of realities; and that a person, under a firm persuasion that he can command resources, virtually has them; that very prospect inspiring him with hope and boldness in his exertions."

"The most honorable, as well as the safest course, is to rely entirely upon valour."

"He was always before men’s eyes; a course of action which, by increasing our familiarity with great men, diminishes our respect for them."

"Such impetuous schemes and boldness are at first sight alluring, but are difficult to handle, and in the result disastrous."

"There is nothing that is more often clothed in an attractive garb than a false creed."

"The sun has not yet set for all time."

"There is an old saying which, from its truth, has become proverbial, that friendships should be immortal, enmities mortal."

"A fraudulent intent, however carefully concealed at the outset, will generally, in the end, betray itself."

"Is demum vir erit, cuius animum neque prosperae res flatu suo efferent nec adversae infringent"

"The style must be always plain and open, yet sometime higher and lower, as matters do rise and fall: for if proper and natural words, in well-joined sentences, do lively express the matter, be it troublesome, quiet, angry, or pleasant, a man shall think not to be reading, but present in doing of the same. And herein Livy, of all other in any tongue, by mine opinion, carrieth away the praise."

"[Those who have specialised in the study of Livy] agree in this, that the purpose of that author in writing his History was to give the world an account of a republic which was very well ordered."

"He explained the organization (gli ordini) and described the methods of government of the Roman Republic better than anyone else."

"By semblance advertisements shall a noble heart be trained to delight in histories. And then, according to the counsel of Quintilian, it is best that he begin with Titus Livius, not only for his elegance of writing, which floweth in him like a fountain of sweet milk: but also forasmuch as by reading that author he may know how the most noble city of Rome, of a small and poor beginning, by prowess and virtue little and little came to the empire and dominion of all the world."

"[I translated Livy to propose] the imitation of every true virtue of the Roman people."

"There has been no one since Livy who has made the trumpet utter its terrible sound in military operations."

"To be angry with a man is to hate him; to hate him is to wish him harm; but to wish him well, even if he has done you harm, is the mark of a great mind."

"Quaeris Alcidae parem? Nemo est nisi ipse."

"rursus prosperum ac felix scelus virtus vocatur; sontibus parent boni, ius est in armis, opprimit leges timor."

"inveniet viam aut faciet."

"Iniqua raro maximis virtutibus fortuna parcit ; nemo se tuto diu periculis offerre tam crebris potest; quem saepe transit casus, aliquando invenit."

"qui genus iactat suum, aliena laudat."

"ars prima regni est posse invidiam pati."

"arma non servant modum; nec temperari facile nec reprimi potest stricti ensis ira; bella delectat cruor."

"quaeritur belli exitus, non causa."

"Cogi qui potest nescit mori."

"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via."

"quae fuit durum pati, meminisse dulce est."

"Qui non vetat peccare cum possit, iubet."

"Mortem misericors saepe pro vita dabit."

"Pyrrhus: Lex nulla capto parcit aut poenam impedit. Agamemnon: Quod non vetat lex, hoc vetat fieri pudor. Pyr: Quodcumque libuit facere victori licet. Agam.: Minimum decet libere cui multum licet."

"Levis est dolor qui capere consilium potest."

"Qui nil potest sperare, desperate nihil."

"Iniqua nunquam regna perpetuo manent."

"Cui prodest scelus, is fecit."

"Curae leues locuntur, ingentes stupent."

"scelere velandum est scelus."

"Mens impudicam facere, non casus, solet."

"mens regnum bona possidet."

"Illi mors gravis incubat Qui notus nimis omnibus Ignotus moritur sibi"

"peior est bello timor ipse belli."

"Quem mihi dabis qui aliquod pretium tempori ponat, qui diem aestimet, qui intellegat se cotidie mori?"

"In hoc enim fallimur, quod mortem prospicimus: magna pars eius iam praeterit; quidquid aetatis retro est mors tenet."

"Lay hold of today’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow’s. While we are postponing, life speeds by."

"Tanta stultitia mortalium est."

"Sera parsimonia in fundo est."

"The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company."

"Nusquam est qui ubique est. Vitam in peregrinatione exigentibus hoc evenit, ut multa hospitia habeant, nullas amicitias."

"Non qui parum habet, sed qui plus cupit, pauper est."

"Nam illa tumultu gaudens non est industria sed exagitatae mentis concursatio."

"Nulli potest secura vita contingere qui de producenda nimis cogitat."

"Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardships of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die."

"No man has ever been so far advanced by Fortune that she did not threaten him as greatly as she had previously indulged him."

"I commend you and rejoice in the fact that you are persistent in your studies, and that, putting all else aside, you make it each day your endeavour to become a better man."

"Plus tamen tibi et viva vox et convictus quam oratio proderit; in rem praesentem venias oportet, primum quia homines amplius oculis quam auribus credunt, deinde quia longum iter est per praecepta, breve et efficax per exempla."

"“What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.” That was indeed a great benefit; such a person can never be alone. You may be sure that such a man is a friend to all mankind."

"But both courses are to be avoided; you should not copy the bad simply because they are many, nor should you hate the many because they are unlike you."

"Recede in te ipse quantum potes; cum his versare qui te meliorem facturi sunt, illos admitte quos tu potes facere meliores. Mutuo ista fiunt, et homines dum docent discunt."

"sic vive cum hominibus tamquam deus videat, si loquere cum deo tamquam homines audiant."

"sciant quae optima sunt esse communia."

"... the only contestant who can confidently enter the lists is the man who has seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent’s fist, who has been tripped and felt the full force of his adversary’s charge, who has been downed in body but not in spirit, one who, as often as he falls, rises again with greater defiance than ever."

"Let another say. “Perhaps the worst will not happen.” You yourself must say. “Well, what if it does happen? Let us see who wins! Perhaps it happens for my best interests; it may be that such a death will shed credit upon my life.”"

"Socrates was ennobled by the hemlock draught. Wrench from Cato's hand his sword, the vindicator of liberty, and you deprive him of the greatest share of his glory."

"Plura sunt, Lucili, quae nos terrent quam quae premunt, et saepius opinione quam re laboramus."

"Mos antiquis fuit, usque ad meam servatus aetatem, primis epistulae verbis adicere 'si vales bene est, ego valeo'. Recte nos dicimus 'si philosopharis, bene est'. Valere enim hoc demum est. Sine hoc aeger est animus."

"There is no reason why poverty should call us away from philosophy—no, nor even actual want. For when hastening after wisdom, we must endure even hunger. Men have endured hunger when their towns were besieged, and what other reward for their endurance did they obtain than that they did not fall under the conqueror’s power? How much greater is the promise of the prize of everlasting liberty, and the assurance that we need fear neither God nor man! Even though we starve, we must reach that goal."

"Armies have endured all manner of want, have lived on roots, and have resisted hunger by means of food too revolting to mention. All this they have suffered to gain a kingdom, and—what is more marvellous—to gain a kingdom that will be another’s. Will any man hesitate to endure poverty, in order that he may free his mind from madness?"

"If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes."

"Leve aes alienum debitorem facit, grave inimicum."

"Prove your words by your deeds."

"quid est sapienta? semper idem velle atque idem nolle."

"Press on, therefore, as you have begun; perhaps you will be led to perfection, or to a point which you alone understand is still short of perfection."

"Nemo quam bene vivat sed quam diu curat, cum omnibus possit contingere ut bene vivant, ut diu nulli."

"It is indeed foolish to be unhappy now because you may be unhappy at some future time."

"You will thus understand that what you fear is either insignificant or short-lived."

"Mucius put his hand into the fire. It is painful to be burned; but how much more painful to inflict such suffering upon oneself!"

"[Mucius] might have accomplished something more successful in that camp, but never anything more brave."

"It was a great deed to conquer Carthage, but a greater deed to conquer death."

"Illud autem ante omnia memento, demere rebus tumultum ac videre quid in quaque re sit: scies nihil esse in istis terribile nisi ipsum timorem."

"I may become a poor man; I shall then be one among many. I may be exiled; I shall then regard myself as born in the place to which I shall be sent. They may put me in chains. What then? Am I free from bonds now? Behold this clogging burden of a body, to which nature has fettered me! “I shall die,” you say; you mean to say “I shall cease to run the risk of sickness; I shall cease to run the risk of imprisonment; I shall cease to run the risk of death.”"

"I do not know whether I shall make progress; but I should prefer to lack success rather than to lack faith."

"You do not know where death awaits you; so be ready for it everywhere."

"Tu me' inquis 'mones? iam enim te ipse monuisti, iam correxisti? ideo aliorum emendationi vacas?' Non sum tam improbus ut curationes aeger obeam, sed, tamquam in eodem valetudinario iaceam, de communi tecum malo colloquor et remedia communico."

"Sola virtus praestat gaudium perpetuum, securum; etiam si quid obstat, nubium modo intervenit, quae infra feruntur nec umquam diem vincunt."

"You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate."

"You must lay aside the burdens of the mind; until you do this, no place will satisfy you."

"Nam qui peccare se nescit, corrigi non vult."

"Magnus gubernator et scisso navigat velo."

"He who does not wish to die cannot have wished to live."

"I forbid you to be cast down or depressed. It is not enough if you do not shrink from work; ask for it."

"Would you know what makes men greedy for the future? It is because no one has yet found himself."

"Ideo pueris et sententias ediscendas damus et has quas Graeci chrias vocant, quia complecti illas puerilis animus potest, qui plus adhuc non capit. Certi profectus viro captare flosculos turpe est et fulcire se notissimis ac paucissimis vocibus et memoria stare: sibi iam innitatur. Dicat ista, non teneat; turpe est enim seni aut prospicienti senectutem ex commentario sapere. 'Hoc Zenon dixit': tu quid? 'Hoc Cleanthes': tu quid? Quousque sub alio moveris? impera et dic quod memoriae tradatur, aliquid et de tuo profer."

"Praeterea qui alium sequitur nihil invenit, immo nec quaerit."

"Quid ergo? non ibo per priorum vestigia? ego vero utar via vetere, sed si propiorem planioremque invenero, hanc muniam. Qui ante nos ista moverunt non domini nostri sed duces sunt. Patet omnibus veritas; nondum est occupata; multum ex illa etiam futuris relictum est."

"Amicitia semper prodest, amor aliquando etiam nocet"

"You must die erect and unyielding."

"It is disgraceful, instead of proceeding ahead, to be carried along, and then suddenly, amid the whirlpool of events, to ask in a dazed way: “How did I get into this condition?”"

"It is the quality of a great soul to scorn great things and to prefer that which is ordinary rather than that which is too great."

"Then it is that the height of unhappiness is reached, when men are not only attracted, but even pleased, by shameful things, and when there is no longer any room for a cure, now that those things which once were vices have become habits."

"Facis rem optimam et tibi salutarem, si, ut scribis, perseveras ire ad bonam mentem, quam stultum est optare, cum possis a te impetrare. Non sunt ad caelum elevandae inarms nee exorandus aedituus, ut nos ad aurem simulacri, quasi magis exaudiri possimus, admittat; Prope est a te deus, tecum est, intus est. Ita dico, Lucili: sacer intra nos spiritus sedet, malorum bonorumque nostrorum observator et custos..."

"Non faciunt meliorem equum aurei freni."

"If you see a man who is unterrified in the midst of dangers, untouched by desires, happy in adversity, peaceful amid the storm, who looks down upon men from a higher plane, and views the gods on a footing of equality, will not a feeling of reverence for him steal over you, will you not say: “This quality is too great and too lofty to be regarded as resembling this petty body in which it dwells? A divine power has descended upon that man.”"

"No man ought to glory except in that which is his own."

"Rationale enim animal est homo."

"Very often the things that cost nothing cost us the most heavily; I can show you many objects the quest and acquisition of which have wrested freedom from our hands."

"“You will have less money.” Yes, and less trouble. “Less influence.” Yes, and less envy."

"He that owns himself has lost nothing. But how few men are blessed with ownership of self!"

"Is qui scit plurimum, rumor."

"Non refert quam multos sed quam bonos habeas."

"At any rate, if you wish to sift doubtful meanings of this kind, teach us that the happy man is not he whom the crowd deems happy, namely, he into whose coffers mighty sums have flowed, but he whose possessions are all in his soul, who is upright and exalted, who spurns inconstancy, who sees no man with whom he wishes to change places, who rates men only at their value as men, who takes Nature for his teacher, conforming to her laws and living as she commands, whom no violence can deprive of his possessions, who turns evil into good, is unerring in judgment, unshaken, unafraid, who may be moved by force but never moved to distraction, whom Fortune when she hurls at him with all her might the deadliest missile in her armoury, may graze, though rarely, but never wound."

"“They are slaves,” people declare. Nay, rather they are men. “Slaves!” No, comrades. “Slaves!” No, they are unpretentious friends. “Slaves!” No, they are our fellow-slaves, if one reflects that Fortune has equal rights over slaves and free men alike."

"Vis tu cogitare istum quem servum tuum vocas ex isdem seminibus ortum eodem frui caelo, aeque spirare, aeque vivere, aeque mori! tam tu illum videre ingenuum potes quam ille te servum."

"sic cum inferiore vivas quemadmodum tecum superiorem velis vivere."

"I propose to value them according to their character, and not according to their duties. Each man acquires his character for himself, but accident assigns his duties."

"“He is a slave.” His soul, however, may be that of a freeman. “He is a slave.” But shall that stand in his way? Show me a man who is not a slave; one is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to ambition, and all men are slaves to fear."

"Would you really know what philosophy offers to humanity? Philosophy offers counsel."

"Show me that the good in life does not depend upon life’s length, but upon the use we make of it; also, that it is possible, or rather usual, for a man who has lived long to have lived too little. Say to me when I lie down to sleep: “You may not wake again!” And when I have waked: “You may not go to sleep again!” Say to me when I go forth from my house: “You may not return!” And when I return: “You may never go forth again!”"

"For what else are you busied with except improving yourself every day, laying aside some error, and coming to understand that the faults which you attribute to circumstances are in yourself?"

"And what is freedom, you ask? It means not being a slave to any circumstance, to any constraint, to any chance; it means compelling Fortune to enter the lists on equal terms."

"Would not anyone who is a man have his slumbers broken by a war-trumpet rather than by a chorus of serenaders?"

"qualis quisque sit scies, si quemadmodum laudet, quemadmodum laudetur aspexeris."

"Our luxuries have condemned us to weakness; we have ceased to be able to do that which we have long declined to do."

"numquam vacat lascivire districtis, nihilque tam certum est quam otii vitia negotio discuti."

"We are weak, watery beings standing in the midst of unrealities; therefore let us turn our minds to the things that are everlasting."

"But the wise man is fortified against all inroads; he is alert; he will not retreat before the attack of poverty, or of sorrow, or of disgrace, or of pain. He will walk undaunted both against them and among them."

"The wise man is joyful, happy and calm, unshaken, he lives on a plane with the gods."

"That which Fortune has not given, she cannot take away."

"I am endeavouring to live every day as if it were a complete life."

"Ante senectutem curavi ut bene viverem, in senectute ut bene moriar; bene autem mori est libenter mori."

"Brevissima ad divitias per contemptum divitiarum via est."

"Fortune has taken away, but Fortune has given."

"Let us greedily enjoy our friends, because we do not know how long this privilege will be ours."

"Nulla res citius in odium venit quam dolor, qui recens consolatorem invenit et aliquos ad se adducit, inveteratus vero deridetur, nec inmerito."

"Whatever can happen at any time can happen today."

"Not lost, but gone before."

"Omnis ars naturae imitatio est."

"Great also are the souls of the defenders—men who know that, as long as the path to death lies open, the blockade is not complete, men who breathe their last in the arms of liberty."

"Allow me, excellent Lucilius, to utter a still bolder word: if any goods could be greater than others, I should prefer those which seem harsh to those which are mild and alluring, and should pronounce them greater. For it is more of an accomplishment to break one’s way through difficulties than to keep joy within bounds."

"There stood Mucius, despising the enemy and despising the fire, and watched his hand as it dripped blood over the fire on his enemy’s altar, until Porsenna, envying the fame of the hero whose punishment he was advocating, ordered the fire to be removed against the will of the victim."

"I cannot help believing that Mucius was all the more lucky because he manipulated the flames as calmly as if he were holding out his hand to the manipulator. He had wiped out all his previous mistakes; he finished the war unarmed and maimed; and with that stump of a hand he conquered two kings."

"I should prefer to be free from torture; but if the time comes when it must be endured, I shall desire that I may conduct myself therein with bravery, honour, and courage. Of course I prefer that war should not occur; but if war does occur, I shall desire that I may nobly endure the wounds, the starvation, and all that the exigency of war brings. Nor am I so mad as to crave illness; but if I must suffer illness, I shall desire that I may do nothing which shows lack of restraint, and nothing that is unmanly. The conclusion is, not that hardships are desirable, but that virtue is desirable, which enables us patiently to endure hardships."

"Now a life of honour includes various kinds of conduct; it may include the chest in which Regulus was confined, or the wound of Cato which was torn open by Cato’s own hand, or the exile of Rutilius, or the cup of poison which removed Socrates from gaol to heaven."

"Clothe yourself with a hero’s courage, and withdraw for a little space from the opinions of the common man. Form a proper conception of the image of virtue, a thing of exceeding beauty and grandeur; this image is not to be worshipped by us with incense or garlands, but with sweat and blood."

"“I should prefer that Fortune keep me in her camp rather than in the lap of luxury. If I am tortured, but bear it bravely, all is well; if I die, but die bravely, it is also well.”"

"Why should I not regard this as desirable—not because the fire, burns me, but because it does not overcome me?"

"Sapiens vivit quantum debet, non quantum potest."

"errant consilia nostra, quia non habent quo derigantur; ignoranti quem portum petat nullus suus ventus est."

"Scire debet quid petat ille, qui sagittam vult mittere, et tunc derigere ac moderari manu telum. Errant consilia nostra, quia non habent, quo derigantur. Ignoranti, quem portum petat, nullus suus ventus est. Necesse est multum in vita nostra casus possit, quia vivimus casu. Quibusdam autem evenit, ut quaedam scire se nesciant. Quemadmodum quaerimus saepe eos, cum quibus stamus, ita plerumque finem summi boni ignoramus adpositum."

"Nec multis verbis nec circumitu longo, quod sit summum bonum, colliges1; digito, ut ita dicam, demonstrandum est nec in multa spargendum. Quid enim ad rem pertinet in particulas illud diducere, cum possis dicere: summum bonum est, quod honestum est? Et quod magis admireris: unum bonum est, quod honestum est, cetera falsa et bona sunt. Hoc si persuaseris tibi et virtutem adamaveris, amare enim parum est, quicquid illa contigerit, id tibi, qualecumque aliis videbitur, faustum felixque erit. Et torqueri, si modo iacueris ipso torquente securior, et aegrotare, si non male dixeris fortunae, si non cesseris morbo, omnia denique, quae ceteris videntur mala, et mansuescent et in bonum abibunt, si super illa eminueris."

"These actions are not essentially difficult; it is we ourselves that are soft and flabby."

"He knows his own strength; he knows that he was born to carry burdens."

"Do you ask me whom I have conquered? Neither the Persians, nor the far-off Medes, nor any warlike race that lies beyond the Dahae; not these, but greed, ambition, and the fear of death that has conquered the conquerors of the world."

"But no wall can be erected against Fortune which she cannot take by storm; let us strengthen our inner defences. If the inner part be safe, man can be attacked, but never captured."

"But the wise man knows that all things are in store for him. Whatever happens, he says: “I knew it.”"

"Tamdiu, discendum est, quemadmodum vivas, quamdiu vivas."

"Would you not think him an utter fool who wept because he was not alive a thousand years ago? And is he not just as much of a fool who weeps because he will not be alive a thousand years from now? It is all the same; you will not be, and you were not. Neither of these periods of time belongs to you."

"So near at hand is freedom, and is anyone still a slave?"

"What else is there which you would regret to have taken from you? Friends? But who can be a friend to you? Country? What? Do you think enough of your country to be late to dinner? The light of the sun? You would extinguish it, if you could; for what have you ever done that was fit to be seen in the light?"

"Aliquando enim et vivere fortiter facere est"

"There is no sorrow in the world, when we have escaped from the fear of death."

"You will die, not because you are ill, but because you are alive; even when you have been cured, thesame end awaits you; when you have recovered, it will be not death, but ill health, that you have escaped."

"No man can suffer both severely and for a long time; Nature, who loves us most tenderly, has so constituted us as to make pain either endurable or short."

"“It is nothing—a trifling matter at most; keep a stout heart and it will soon cease”; then in thinking it slight, you will make it slight. Everything depends on opinion; ambition, luxury, greed, hark back to opinion. It is according to opinion that we suffer."

"Two elements must therefore be rooted out once for all—the fear of future suffering, and the recollection of past suffering; since the latter no longer concerns me, and the former concerns me not yet."

"Is it for this purpose that we are strong—that we may have light burdens to bear?"

"Meanwhile, hold fast to this thought, and grip it close: yield not to adversity; trust not to prosperity; keep before your eyes the full scope of Fortune’s power, as if she would surely do whatever is in her power to do."

"Eo animo quidque debetur quo datur, nec quantum sit sed a quali profectum voluntate perpenditur."

"Quemadmodum Attalus noster dicere solebat, 'malitia ipsa maximam partem veneni sui bibit'. Illud venenum quod serpentes in alienam perniciem proferunt, sine sua continent, non est huic simile: hoc habentibus pessimum est."

"“You must go now, fellow-soldiers, to yonder place, whence there is no ‘must’ about your returning!”"

"Nihil aliud esse ebrietatem quam voluntariam insaniam."

"Confragosa in fastigium dignitatis via est."

"But he has no fear; unconquered he looks down from a lofty height upon his sufferings."

"Thus no fortune, no external circumstance, can shut off the wise man from action. For the very thing which engages his attention prevents him from attending to other things. He is ready for either outcome: if it brings goods, he controls them; if evils, he conquers them."

"So the wise man will develop virtue, if he may, in the midst of wealth, or, if not, in poverty; if possible, in his own country—if not, in exile; if possible, as a commander—if not, as a common soldier; if possible, in sound health—if not, enfeebled. Whatever fortune he finds, he will accomplish therefrom something noteworthy."

"quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit: occidentis telum est."

"Satius est supervacua scire quam nihil."

"Quemadmodum perniciosior est hostis fugientibus, sic omne fortuitum incommodum magis instat cedenti et averso."

"A thatched roof once covered free men; under marble and gold dwells slavery."

"It would be some consolation for the feebleness of our selves and our works, if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid."

"Perhaps its destruction has been brought about only that it may be raised up again to a better destiny. Oftentimes a reverse has but made room for more prosperous fortune. Many structures have fallen only to rise to a greater height."

"Alexander, king of Macedon, began to study geometry; unhappy man, because he would thereby learn how puny was that earth of which he had seized but a fraction! Unhappy man, I repeat, because he was bound to understand that he was bearing a false title. For who can be “great” in that which is puny?"

"Imagine that nature is saying to us: “Those things of which you complain are the same for all. I cannot give anything easier to any man, but whoever wishes will make things easier for himself.” In what way? By equanimity. You must suffer pain, and thirst, and hunger, and old age too, if a longer stay among men shall be granted you; you must be sick, and you must suffer loss and death."

"That man, I declare, is happy whom nothing makes less strong than he is; he keeps to the heights, leaning upon none but himself; for one who sustains himself by any prop may fall."

"Nemo liber est qui corpori servit."

"postea noli rogare quod inpetrare nolueris."

"Saepe aliud volumus, aliud optamus, et verum ne dis quidem dicimus."

"Non privatim solum sed publice furimus. Homicidia conpescimus et singulas caedes: quid bella et occisarum gentium gloriosum scelus? Non avaritia, non crudelitas modum novit. Et ista quamdiu furtim et a singulis fiunt minus noxia minusque monstrosa sunt: ex senatus consultis plebisque scitis saeva exercentur et publice iubentur vetata privatim. Quae clam commissa capite luerent, tum quia paludati fecere laudamus. Non pudet homines, mitissimum genus, gaudere sanguine alterno et bella gerere gerendaque liberis tradere, cum inter se etiam mutis ac feris pax sit. Adversus tam potentem explicitumque late furorem operosior philosophia facta est et tantum sibi virium sumpsit quantum iis adversus quae parabatur acceserat."

"As our acts and our thoughts are, so will our lives be."

"Atqui vivere, Lucili, militare est."

"For this reason those who are tossed about at sea, who proceed uphill and downhill over toilsome crags and heights, who go on campaigns that bring the greatest danger, are heroes and front-rank fighters; but persons who live in rotten luxury and ease while others toil, are mere turtle-doves safe only because men despise them."

"“All the Good of mortals is mortal.”"

"“Of all these experiences that seem so frightful, none is insuperable. Separate trials have been over- come by many: fire by Mucius, crucifixion by Regulus, poison by Socrates, exile by Rutilius, and a sword-inflicted death by Cato; therefore, let us also overcome something.”"

"Pain he endures, death he awaits."

"Whoever complains about the death of anyone, is complaining that he was a man. Everyone is bound by the same terms: he who is privileged to be born, is destined to die."

"Accept in an unruffled spirit that which is inevitable."

"But how foolish it is to set out one’s life, when one is not even owner of the morrow!"

"Therefore, my dear Lucilius, begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life."

"The point is, not how long you live, but how nobly you live. And often this living nobly means that you cannot live long."

"Socrates is reported to have replied, when a certain person complained of having received no benefit from his travels: “It serves you right! You travelled in your own company!”"

"What profit is there in crossing the sea and in going from one city to another? If you would escape your troubles, you need not another place but another personality. Perhaps you have reached Athens, or perhaps Rhodes; choose any state you fancy, how does it matter what its character may be? You will be bringing to it your own."

"“New friends, however, will not be the same.” No, nor will you yourself remain the same; you change with every day and every hour."

"Si sapis, alterum alteri misce: nec speraveris sine desperatione nec desperaveris sine spe."

"Or, if you enjoy living with Greeks also, spend your time with Socrates and with Zeno: the former will show you how to die if it be necessary; the latter how to die before it is necessary. Live with Chrysippus, with Posidonius: they will make you acquainted with things earthly and things heavenly; they will bid you work hard over something more than neat turns of language and phrases mouthed forth for the entertainment of listeners; they will bid you be stout of heart and rise superior to threats. The only harbour safe from the seething storms of this life is scorn of the future, a firm stand, a readiness to receive Fortune’s missiles full in the breast, neither skulking nor turning the back."

"This spirit thrusts itself forward, confident of commendation and esteem. It is superior to all, monarch of all it surveys; hence it should be subservient to nothing, finding no task too heavy, and nothing strong enough to weigh down the shoulders of a man."

"At quanto ego de illis melius existimo! ipsi quoque haec possunt facere, sed nolunt. Denique quem umquam ista destituere temptantem? cui non faciliora apparuere in actu? Non quia difficilia sunt non audemus, sed quia non audemus difficilia sunt."

"He maintained this attitude up to the very end, and no man ever saw Socrates too much elated or too much depressed. Amid all the disturbance of Fortune, he was undisturbed."

"Do you desire another case? Take that of the younger Marcus Cato, with whom Fortune dealt in a more hostile and more persistent fashion. But he withstood her, on all occasions, and in his last moments, at the point of death, showed that a brave man can live in spite of Fortune, can die in spite of her. His whole life was passed either in civil warfare, or under a political regime which was soon to breed civil war."

"No one ever saw Cato change, no matter how often the state changed: he kept himself the same in all circumstances—in the praetorship, in defeat, under accusation, in his province, on the platform, in the army, in death."

"And this is the vote which [Cato] casts concerning them both: “If Caesar wins, I slay myself; if Pompey, I go into exile.” What was there for a man to fear who, whether in defeat or in victory, had assigned to himself a doom which might have been assigned to him by his enemies in their utmost rage? So he died by his own decision."

"You see that man can endure toil: Cato, on foot, led an army through African deserts. You see that thirst can be endured: he marched over sun-baked hills, dragging the remains of a beaten army and with no train of supplies, undergoing lack of water and wearing a heavy suit of armour; always the last to drink of the few springs which they chanced to find. You see that honour, and dishonour too, can be despised: for they report that on the very day when Cato was defeated at the elections, he played a game of ball. You see also that man can be free from fear of those above him in rank: for Cato attacked Caesar and Pompey simultaneously, at a time when none dared fall foul of the one without endeavouring to oblige the other. You see that death can be scorned as well as exile: Cato inflicted exile upon himself and finally death, and war all the while."

"If you set a high value on liberty, you must set a low value on everything else."

"Besides, he who is feared, fears also; no one has been able to arouse terror and live in peace of mind."

"Quemadmodum omnium rerum, sic litterarum quoque intemperantia laboramus: non vitae sed scholae discimus."

"And we cannot change this order of things; but what we can do is to acquire stout hearts, worthy of good men, thereby courageously enduring chance and placing ourselves in harmony with Nature."

"It is to this law that our souls must adjust themselves, this they should follow, this they should obey. Whatever happens, assume that it was bound to happen, and do not be willing to rail at Nature. That which you cannot reform, it is best to endure, and to attend uncomplainingly upon the God under whose guidance everything progresses; for it is a bad soldier who grumbles when following his commander."

"Optimum est pati quod emendare non possis."

"They have been spoken by Plato, spoken by Zeno, spoken by Chrysippus or by Posidonius, and by a whole host of Stoics as numerous as excellent. I shall show you how men can prove their words to be their own: it is by doing what they have been talking about."

"Let words proceed as they please, provided only your soul keeps its own sure order, provided your soul is great and holds unruffled to its ideals, pleased with itself on account of the very things which displease others, a soul that makes life the test of its progress, and believes that its knowledge is in exact proportion to its freedom from desire and its freedom from fear."

"Tell me what to avoid, what to seek, by what studies to strengthen my tottering mind, how I may rebuff the waves that strike me abeam and drive me from my course, by what means I may be able to cope with all my evils, and by what means I can be rid of the calamities that have plunged in upon me and those into which I myself have plunged. Teach me how to bear the burden of sorrow without a groan on my part, and how to bear prosperity without making others groan; also, how to avoid waiting for the ultimate and inevitable end, and to beat a retreat of my own free will, when it seems proper to me to do so."

"Why then do you occupy me with the words rather than with the works of wisdom? Make me braver, make me calmer, make me the equal of Fortune, make me her superior."

"I will tell you: that perfect man, who has attained virtue, never cursed his luck, and never received the results of chance with dejection; he believed that he was citizen and soldier of the universe, accepting his tasks as if they were his orders. Whatever happened, he did not spurn it, as if it were evil and borne in upon him by hazard; he accepted it as if it were assigned to be his duty. “Whatever this may be,”he says, “it is my lot; it is rough and it is hard, but I must work diligently at the task.”"

"Magna pars libertatis est bene moratus venter et contumeliae patiens."

"The customs of that most criminal nation have gained such strength that they have now been received in all lands. The conquered have given laws to the conquerors."

"Qui grate beneficium accipit, primam eius pensionem solvit."

"Marcet sine adversario virtus."

"Patrium deus habet adversus bonos viros animum et illos fortiter amat et "Operibus," inquit, "doloribus, damnis exagitentur, ut verum colligant robur." Languent per inertiam saginata nec labore tantum sed motu et ipso sui onere deficiunt. Non fert ullum ictum inlaesa felicitas; at cui assidua fuit cum incommodis suis rixa, callum per iniurias duxit nec ulli malo cedit sed etiam si cecidit de genu pugnat."

""Licet," inquit, "omnia in unius dicionem concesserint, custodiantur legionibus terrae, classibus maria, Caesarianus portas miles obsideat; Cato qua exeat habet; una manu latam libertati viam faciet. Ferrum istud, etiam civili bello purum et innoxium, bonas tandem ac nobiles edet operas: libertatem, quam patriae non potuit, Catoni dabit."

"Quare deus optimum quemque aut mala valetudine aut luctu aut aliis incommodis adficit? quia in castris quoque periculosa fortissimis imperantur: dux lectissimos mittit qui nocturnis hostes adgrediantur insidiis aut explorent iter aut praesidium loco deiciant. Nemo eorum qui exeunt dicit 'male de me imperator mervit', sed 'bene iudicavit'."

"Ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes uiros."

"We put down mad dogs; we kill the wild, untamed ox; we use the knife on sick sheep to stop their infecting the flock; we destroy abnormal offspring at birth; children, too, if they are born weak or deformed, we drown. Yet this is not the work of anger, but of reason – to separate the sound from the worthless."

"bonus iudex damnat inprobanda, non odit."

"nemo autem regere potest nisi qui et regi."

"Contra primus itaque causas pugnare debemus; causa autem iracundiae opinio iniuriae est, cui non facile credendum est. Ne apertis quidem manifestisque statim accedendum; quaedam enim falsa ueri speciem ferunt. Dandum semper est tempus: ueritatem dies aperit."

"fidei acerrimus exactor est perfidus"

"Magna pars hominum est quae non peccatis irascitur, sed peccantibus."

"Hoc habent pessimum animi magna fortuna insolentes: quos laeserunt et oderunt."

"Irascetur aliquis: tu contra beneficiis prouoca; cadit statim simultas ab altera parte deserta; nisi paria non pugnant."

"Aut potentior te aut inbecillior laesit: si inbecillior, parce illi, si potentior, tibi."

"Oculis de homine non credo, habeo melius et certius lumen quo a falsis uera diiudicem: animi bonum animus inueniat."

"Omnis enim ex infirmitate feritas est."

"Non exiguum temporis habemus, sed multum perdidimus. Satis longa vita."

"Denique inter omnes convenit nullam rem bene exerceri posse ab homine occupato, non eloquentiam, non liberales disciplinas, quando districtus animus nihil altius recipit, sed omnia velut inculcata respuit."

"We are all chained to fortune: the chain of one is made of gold, and wide, while that of another is short and rusty. But what difference does it make? The same prison surrounds all of us, and even those who have bound others are bound themselves; unless perchance you think that a chain on the left side is lighter. Honors bind one man, wealth another; nobility oppresses some, humility others; some are held in subjection by an external power, while others obey the tyrant within; banishments keep some in one place, the priesthood others. All life is slavery. Therefore each one must accustom himself to his own condition and complain about it as little as possible, and lay hold of whatever good is to be found near him. Nothing is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find comfort in it. Small tablets, because of the writer's skill, have often served for many purposes, and a clever arrangement has often made a very narrow piece of land habitable. Apply reason to difficulties; harsh circumstances can be softened, narrow limits can be widened, and burdensome things can be made to press less severely on those who bear them cleverly."

"Male vivet quisquis nesciet bene mori."

"Numquam me in re bona mali pudebit auctoris."

"Virtue runs no risk of becoming contemptible by being exposed to view, and it is better to be despised for simplicity than to be tormented by continual hypocrisy."

"Our minds must have relaxation: rested, they will rise up better and keener. Just as we must not force fertile fields (for uninterrupted production will quickly exhaust them), so continual labor will break the power of our minds. They will recover their strength, however, after they have had a little freedom and relaxation."

"Whether we believe the Greek poet, "it is sometimes even pleasant to be mad", or Plato, "he who is master of himself has knocked in vain at the doors of poetry"; or Aristotle, "no great genius was without a mixture of insanity"; the mind cannot express anything lofty and above the ordinary unless inspired. When it despises the common and the customary, and with sacred inspiration rises higher, then at length it sings something grander than that which can come from mortal lips. It cannot attain anything sublime and lofty so long as it is sane: it must depart from the customary, swing itself aloft, take the bit in its teeth, carry away its rider and bear him to a height whither he would have feared to ascend alone."

"Mors dolorum omnium exsolutio est et finis ultra quem mala nostra non exeunt, quae nos in illam tranquillitatem in qua antequam nasceremur iacuimus reponit. Si mortuorum aliquis miseretur, et non natorum misereatur. Mors nec bonum nec malum est; id enim potest aut bonum aut malum esse quod aliquid est; quod uero ipsum nihil est et omnia in nihilum redigit, nulli nos fortunae tradit. Mala enim bonaque circa aliquam uersantur materiam: non potest id fortuna tenere quod natura dimisit, nec potest miser esse qui nullus est."

"Quid opus est partes deflere? Tota flebilis uita est."

"When the changes of our times gave you an opportunity, you restored to the use of man that genius of your father for which he had suffered, and made him in real truth immortal by publishing as an eternal memorial of him those books which that bravest of men had written with his own blood. You have done a great service to Roman literature: a large part of Cordus’s books had been burned; a great service to posterity, who will receive a true account of events, which cost its author so dear; and a great service to himself, whose memory flourishes and ever will flourish, as long as men set any value upon the facts of Roman history, as long as anyone lives who wishes to review the deeds of our fathers, to know what a true Roman was like — one who still remained unconquered when all other necks were broken in to receive the yoke of Sejanus, one who was free in every thought, feeling, and act."

"By Hercules, the state would have sustained a great loss if you had not brought him forth from the oblivion to which his two splendid qualities, eloquence and independence, had consigned him: he is now read, is popular, is received into men’s hands and bosoms, and fears no old age: but as for those who butchered him, before long men will cease to speak even of their crimes, the only things by which they are remembered."

"All vices sink into our whole being, if we do not crush them before they gain a footing; and in like manner these sad, pitiable, and discordant feelings end by feeding upon their own bitterness, until the unhappy mind takes a sort of morbid delight in grief... In like manner, wounds heal easily when the blood is fresh upon them: they can then be cleared out and brought to the surface, and admit of being probed by the finger: when disease has turned them into malignant ulcers, their cure is more difficult."

"Octavia lost Marcellus, whom both his father-in-law and his uncle had begun to depend upon, and to place upon his shoulders the weight of the empire — a young man of keen intelligence and firm character, frugal and moderate in his desires to an extent which deserved especial admiration in one so young and so wealthy, strong to endure labour, averse to indulgence, and able to bear whatever burden his uncle might choose to lay, or I may say to pile upon his shoulders. Augustus had well chosen him as a foundation, for he would not have given way under any weight, however excessive."

"What madness this is, to punish oneself because one is unfortunate, and not to lessen, but to increase one’s ills! You ought to display, in this matter also, that decent behaviour and modesty which has characterised all your life: for there is such a thing as self-restraint in grief also."

"When we leave you and assemble together by ourselves, we talk freely about his sayings and doings, treating them with the respect which they deserve: in your presence deep silence is observed about him, and thus you lose that greatest of pleasures, the hearing the praises of your son, which I doubt not you would be willing to hand down to all future ages, had you the means of so doing, even at the cost of your own life."

"You have demanded of me, Novatus, that I should write how anger may be soothed, and it appears to me that you are right in feeling especial fear of this passion, which is above all others hideous and wild: for the others have some alloy of peace and quiet, but this consists wholly in action and the impulse of grief, raging with an utterly inhuman lust for arms, blood and tortures, careless of itself provided it hurts another, rushing upon the very point of the sword, and greedy for revenge even when it drags the avenger to ruin with itself."

"Some of the wisest of men have in consequence of this called anger a short madness: for it is equally devoid of self control, regardless of decorum, forgetful of kinship, obstinately engrossed in whatever it begins to do, deaf to reason and advice, excited by trifling causes, awkward at perceiving what is true and just, and very like a falling rock which breaks itself to pieces upon the very thing which it crushes."

"That you may know that they whom anger possesses are not sane, look at their appearance; for as there are distinct symptoms which mark madmen, such as a bold and menacing air, a gloomy brow, a stern face"

"Other vices can be concealed and cherished in secret; anger shows itself openly and appears in the countenance, and the greater it is, the more plainly it boils forth. Do you not see how in all animals certain signs appear before they proceed to mischief, and how their entire bodies put off their usual quiet appearance and stir up their ferocity? Boars foam at the mouth and sharpen their teeth by rubbing them against trees, bulls toss their horns in the air and scatter the sand with blows of their feet"

"Next, if you choose to view its results and the mischief that it does, no plague has cost the human race more dear"

"See the foundations of the most celebrated cities hardly now to be discerned; they were ruined by anger. See deserts extending for many miles without an inhabitant: they have been desolated by anger."

"What, if you were to pass from the consideration of those single men against whom anger has broken out to view whole assemblies cut down by the sword, the people butchered by the soldiery let loose upon it, and whole nations condemned to death in one common ruin... as though by men who either freed themselves from our charge or despised our authority?"

"Everything of this sort is not anger, but the semblance of anger, like that of boys who want to beat the ground when they have fallen upon it, and who often do not even know why they are angry, but are merely angry without any reason or having received any injury, yet not without some semblance of injury received, or without some wish to exact a penalty for it."

"Thus they are deceived by the likeness of blows, and are appeased by the pretended tears of those who deprecate their wrath, and thus an unreal grief is healed by an unreal revenge."

"We must admit, however, that neither wild beasts nor any other creature except man is subject to anger: for, whilst anger is the foe of reason, it nevertheless does not arise in any place where reason cannot dwell. Wild beasts have impulses, fury, cruelty, combativeness: they have not anger any more than they have luxury: yet they indulge in some pleasures with less self-control than human beings."

"Dumb creatures have not human feelings, but have certain impulses which resemble them: for if it were not so, if they could feel love and hate, they would likewise be capable of friendship and enmity, of disagreement and agreement. Some traces of these qualities exist even in them, though properly all of them, whether good or bad, belong to the human breast alone."

"To no creature besides man has been given wisdom, foresight, industry, and reflection."

"To animals not only human virtues but even human vices are forbidden: their whole constitution, mental and bodily, is unlike that of human beings...they possess intellect, the greatest attribute of all, but in a rough and inexact condition. It is, consequently, able to grasp those visions and semblances which rouse it to action, but only in a cloudy and indistinct fashion. Their impulses and outbreaks are violent, and that they do not feel fear, anxieties, grief, or anger, but some semblances of these feelings: wherefore they quickly drop them and adopt the converse of them: they graze after showing the most vehement rage and terror, and after frantic bellowing and plunging they straightaway sink into quiet sleep."

"What anger is has been sufficiently explained. The difference between it and irascibility is evident: it is the same as that between a drunken man and a drunkard; between a frightened man and a coward. It is possible for an angry man not to be irascible; an irascible man may sometimes not be angry. I shall omit the other varieties of anger, which the Greeks distinguish by various names, because we have no distinctive words for them in our language, although we call men bitter and harsh, and also peevish, frantic, clamorous, surly and fierce: all of which are different forms of irascibility."

"Let us now enquire whether anger be in accordance with nature, and whether it be useful and worth entertaining in some measure."

"What is more affectionate to others than man? Yet what is more savage against them than anger?"

"Mankind is born for mutual assistance, anger for mutual ruin: the former loves society, the latter estrangement."

"The one loves to do good, the other to do harm; the one to help even strangers, the other to attack even its dearest friends."

"The one is ready even to sacrifice itself for the good of others, the other to plunge into peril provided it drags others with it."

"Who, then, can be more ignorant of nature than he who classes this cruel and hurtful vice as belonging to her best and most polished work?"

"Anger, as we have said, is eager to punish; and that such a desire should exist in man’s peaceful breast is least of all according to his nature; for human life is founded on benefits and harmony and is bound together into an alliance for the common help of all, not by terror, but by love towards one another."

"Much must also be withdrawn into oneself: for a well-composed conversation of differences disturbs and renews the affections, and infuriates whatever is weak in the mind and has not been cared for... Loneliness will cure the hatred of the crowd, the boredom of solitude will be cured by the crowd. ... A certain dullness and languor of the mind is born from constant toil. ...Nor would the desire of men so much tend to this, unless play and fun had a kind of natural voluptuousness. The frequent use of which will relieve all the weight of the soul and all the vigor. For sleep is also necessary for refreshment, but if you continue it day and night, death will result."

"It makes a big difference whether you give something back or pay it off... The framers of the laws instituted festivals, in order that men should be publicly compelled to gaiety, as a necessary temperance for labors; We remember the great orator Pollio Asinius, who was not detained by anything beyond the tenth hour: he did not even need letters for an hour after that, so that no new concern arose, but he put the fatigue of the whole day in those two hours. Some joined in the middle of the day and put off some lighter work in the afternoon hours. Our elders also forbade a new report to be made in the senate after ten o'clock. The army divided the vigils, and the night was safe from the return of the expedition."

"The mind must be indulged, and leisure must be given from time to time, which is the place of food and strength."

"To roam in open walks, that the soul may increase and lift itself up in the free air and with much spirit; sometimes travel and a change of country will give vigor, and marriage and more liberal drink. Sometimes even to the point of drunkenness, not that it drowns us, but that it depresses us: for it washes away cares and moves the mind from below, and, as with certain diseases, so it heals sadness."

"You have, dearest Serene, things that can protect tranquility, things that restore it, things that resist creeping escapes. Be it known, however, that none of these things is sufficient for those who hold a feeble matter, unless a constant concern surrounds the slipping mind."

"Nihil perpetuum, pauca diuturna sunt; aliud alio modo fragile est, rerum exitus variantur, ceterum quicquid coepit et desinit."

"Magna servitus est magna fortuna."

"Growth is slow but collapse is rapid."

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful."

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."

"Si vis amari, ama."

"Servare cives, major est virtus patriae patri."

"[Seneca] would have denounced the opinion to which most philosophers, tacitly or otherwise, have come round in the last half-century, that it is no part of the business of philosophy to turn people into better persons, as tantamount to desertion or lèse-majesté."

"[Seneca’s] tremendous faith in philosophy … was grounded on a belief that her end was the practical one of curing souls, of bringing peace and order to the feverish minds of men pursuing the wrong aims in life."

"He is refreshingly undogmatic, incomplete, and at times even senile. We cannot rightly accuse him of all the moralizing and dogmatism which spoiled the objective accuracy of medieval Science before Roger Bacon. Nor can we blame him for assuming that imprisoned air is the main agency in earthquakes, or for not knowing that the rainbow's colors are the result of decomposition of white light instead of a seeming color which does not really exist, or for believing that lightning melts metals and freezes wine, or that the sun is supported by exhalations from the earth. In his assumption, however, that comets may have orbits which carry them beyond the zodiac, that there is an evolutionary process in the world, and that rings round the sun are often the result of atmospheric conditions, he is sound. But after all, how accurate were the astronomers before Galileo, the physicists before Newton, or the biologists before Darwin? Seneca's guesses are as good as those of any other speculator before the discoveries of modern Science."

"Seneca's virtue shows forth so live and vigorous in his writings, and the defense is so clear there against some of these imputations, as that of his wealth and excessive spending, that I would not believe any testimony to the contrary."

"Then there is none of the ancient moralists to whom the modern, from Montaigne, Charron, Ralegh, Bacon, downwards, owe more than to Seneca. Seneca has no spark of the kindly warmth of Horace; he has not the animation of Plutarch; he abounds too much in the artificial and extravagant paradoxes of the Stoics. But, for all that, he touches the great and eternal commonplaces of human occasion—friendship, health, bereavement, riches, poverty, death—with a hand that places him high among the wise masters of life. All through the ages men, tossed in the beating waves of circumstance, have found more in the essays and letters of Seneca than in any other secular writer, words of good counsel and comfort."

"Caligula used to say that Seneca, who was very popular just then, composed "mere school exercises," and that he was "sand without lime.""

"Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba."

"Non est, crede mihi, sapientis dicere ‘Vivam’: Sera nimis vita est crastina: vive hodie."

"Cineri gloria sera venit."

"Stop abusing my verses, or publish some of your own."

"You complain, friend Swift, of the length of my epigrams, but you yourself write nothing. Yours are shorter."

"Invitas nullum nisi cum quo, Cotta, lavaris et dant convivam balnea sola tibi mirabar quare numquam me, Cotta, vocasses: iam scio me nudum displicuisse tibi."

"I do not love thee, Sabidius, nor can I say why; this only I can say, I do not love thee."

"Ride, si sapis."

"Turpe est difficiles habere nugas, Et stultus labor est ineptiarum."

"Sit mihi verna satur: sit non doctissima conjux: Sit nox cum somno: sit sine lite dies."

"Simpliciter pateat vitium fortasse pusillum: Quod tegitur, magnum creditur esse malum"

"Semper eris pauper, si pauper es, Aemiliane; Dantur opes nulli nunc, nisi divitibus."

"Nullos esse deos, inane caelum Adfirmat Segius: probatque, quod se Factum, dum negat haec, videt beatum."

"The bee enclosed and through the amber shown Seems buried in the juice which was his own."

"Laudant illa sed ista legunt."

"You ask what a nice girl will do? She won't give an inch, but she won't say no."

"Divisum sic breve fiet opus."

"Si post fata venit gloria, non propero."

"Nobis pereunt et imputantur."

"Vita non est vivere, sed valera vita est."

"Barbarian hordes en masse you fuck, Odd types into your bed you tuck, You take on blacks and Asian forces, And Jews, and soldiers, and their horses. Yet you, voracious Roman chick, Have never known a Roman dick."

"Quisquis ubique habitat, Maxime, nusquam habitat."

"Accipe quam primum; brevis est occasio lucri."

"Laudas balnea versibus trecentis Cenantis bene Pontici, Sabelle. Vis cenare, Sabelle, non lavari."

"Ampliat aetatis spatium sibi vir bonus. Hoc est Vivere bis vita posse priore frui."

"Neither fear your death's day nor long for it."

"Ardua res haec est opibus non tradere mores."

"Non est paupertas, Nestor, habere nihil."

"The mode of death is sadder than death itself."

"Fortuna multis dat nimis, satis nulli."

"Difficilis facilis iucundus acerbus es idem: Nec possum tecum vivere nec sine te."

"He who refuses nothing...will soon have nothing to refuse."

"Currant verba licet, manus est velocior illis; Nondum lingua suum, dextra peregit opus."

"And then what proper person can be partial To all those nauseous epigrams of Martial?"

"The greatest of epigrammatists, and the father of the epigram as we understand it."

"I have now gone through the first seven books of Martial, and have learned about 360 of the best lines. His merit seems to me to lie, not in wit, but in the rapid succession of vivid images. I wish he were less nauseous. ... Besides his indecency, his servility and his mendicancy disgust me."

"Audio Valerium Martialem decessisse et moleste fero. Erat homo ingeniosus acutus acer, et qui plurimum in scribendo et salis haberet et fellis nec candoris minus. ... At non erunt aeterna, quae scripsit; non erunt fortasse, ille tamen scripsit, tamquam essent futura."

"As the blessings of health and fortune have a beginning, so they must also find an end. Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay."

"Satis eloquentiae, sapientiae parum."

"Nam divitiarum et formae gloria fluxa atque fragilis est, virtus clara aeternaque habetur."

"Sed nostra omnis vis in animo et corpore sita est; animi imperio, corporis servitio magis utimur; alterum nobis cum dis, alterum cum beluis commune est."

"Verum ubi pro labore desidia, pro continentia et aequitate libido atque superbia invasere, fortuna simul cum moribus immutatur. Ita imperium semper ad optimum quemque a minus bono transfertur. (II)"

"Sed multi mortales dediti ventri atque somno, indocti incultique vitam sicuti peregrinantes transiere."

"Quod si regum atque imperatorum animi virtus in pace ita ut in bello valeret, aequabilius atque constantius sese res humanae haberent neque aliud alio ferri neque mutari ac misceri omnia cerneres. Nam imperium facile iis artibus retinetur, quibus initio partum est. Verum ubi pro labore desidia, pro continentia et aequitate lubido atque superbia invasere, fortuna simul cum moribus inmutatur. Ita imperium semper ad optumum quemque a minus bono transferetur."

"Sed ego adolescentulus initio sicuti plerique studio ad rem publicam latus sum, ibique mihi multa adversa fuere. Nam pro pudore, pro abstinentia, pro virtute, audacia, largitio, avaritia vigebant."

"Ambitio multos mortales falsos fieri subegit, aliud clausum in pectore, aliud in lingua promptum habere, amicitias inimicitiasque non ex re, sed ex commodo aestimare, magisque vultum quam ingenium bonum habere."

"Nam idem velle atque idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est."

"Nonne emori per virtutem praestat quam vitam miseram atque inhonestam, ubi alienae superbiae ludibrio fueris, per dedecus amittere?"

"At nos non imperium neque divitias petimus, quarum rerum causa bella atque certamina omnia inter mortales sunt, sed libertatem, quam nemo bonus nisi cum anima simul amittit."

"Omnes homines, patres conscripti, qui de rebus dubiis consultant, ab odio, amicitia, ira atque misericordia vacuos esse decet."

"Necessitas etiam timidos fortes facit."

"Nam concordia parvae res crescunt, discordia maxumae dilabuntur."

"Namque pauci libertatem, pars magna iustos dominos volunt."

"Sed res docuit id verum esse, quod in carminibus Appius ait, fabrum esse suae quemque fortunae."

"He that will be angry for anything, will be angry for nothing."

"Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude."

"Think like a man of action, and act like a man of thought."

"I think Sallust inferior to both Livy and Tacitus in the talents of an historian. There is a lecturing, declaiming, tone about him which would suit a teacher of rhetoric better than a statesman engaged in recording great events. Still, he is a good writer; and the view which he here gives of the state of parties at Rome, and the frightful demoralization of the aristocracy, is full of interest."

"Let the prince be ever mindful of Sallust's teaching that neither soldiers nor money can defend a king but only friends won by good deeds, merit, and honesty."

"Whoever would fully and feelingly understand the words of Christ, must endeavor to conform his life wholly to the life of Christ."

"If thou knewest the whole Bible by heart, and the sayings of all the philosophers, what would it profit thee without the love of God and without grace?"

"What will it avail thee to dispute profoundly of the Trinity, if thou be void of humility, and art thereby displeasing to the Trinity?"

"Many things there are to know which profiteth little or nothing to the soul."

"Be not high-minded, but rather confess thine ignorance."

"He who knoweth himself well is vile in his own sight;"

"To account nothing of one’s self, and to think always kindly and highly of others, this is great and perfect wisdom."

"A pure, sincere, and stable spirit is not distracted though it be employed in many works; for that it works all to the honor of God, and inwardly being still and quiet, seeks not itself in any thing it doth."

"Certe adveniente die judicii, non quæretur a nobis quid legimus, sed quid fecimus; nec quam bene diximus, sed quam religiose viximus."

"O quam cito transit gloria mundi."

"Of a surety, at the Day of Judgment it will be demanded of us, not what we have read, but what we have done; not how well we have spoken, but how holily we have lived."

"And because many seek knowledge rather than good living, therefore they go astray, and bear little or no fruit."

"He is truly great that is great in charity. He is truly great that is little in himself, and maketh no account of any height of honor. And he is truly learned that doeth the will of God, and forsaketh his own will."

"But they that are perfect, do not give ready heed to every news-bearer, for they know man’s weakness that it is prone to evil and unstable in words."

"If thou desire to profit, read with humility, simplicity, and faithfulness; nor even desire the repute of learning."

"The proud and the avaricious man are never at rest; while the poor and lowly of heart abide in the multitude of peace."

"Be not lifted up because of thy strength or beauty of body, for with only a slight sickness it will fail and wither away. Be not vain of thy skilfulness or ability, lest thou displease God, from whom cometh every good gift which we have."

"Peace is ever with the humble man, but in the heart of the proud there is envy and continual wrath."

"Choose for thy companions God and His Angels only, and flee from the notice of men."

"Therefore trust not too much to thine own opinion, but be ready also to hear the opinions of others."

"How can he abide long time in peace who occupieth himself with other men’s matters, and with things without himself, and meanwhile payeth little or rare heed to the self within?"

"It is good for us that we sometimes have sorrows and adversities, for they often make a man lay to heart that he is only a stranger and sojourner, and may not put his trust in any worldly thing. It is good that we sometimes endure contradictions, and are hardly and unfairly judged, when we do and mean what is good. For these things help us to be humble, and shield us from vain-glory."

"Yet, notwithstanding, temptations turn greatly unto our profit, even though they be great and hard to bear; for through them we are humbled, purified, instructed. All Saints have passed through much tribulation and temptation, and have profited thereby."

"The beginning of all temptations to evil is instability of temper and want of trust in God; for even as a ship without a helm is tossed about by the waves, so is a man who is careless and infirm of purpose tempted, now on this side, now on that. As fire testeth iron, so doth temptation the upright man."

"And so little by little the enemy entereth in altogether, because he was not resisted at the beginning."

"Look well unto thyself, and beware that thou judge not the doings of others. In judging others a man laboureth in vain; he often erreth, and easily falleth into sin; but in judging and examining himself he always laboureth to good purpose."

"Occasions of adversity best discover how great virtue or strength each one hath. For occasions do not make a man frail, but they show what he is."

"Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be."

"Endeavour to be patient in bearing with other men’s faults and infirmities whatsoever they be, for thou thyself also hast many things which have need to be borne with by others."

"We are ready to see others made perfect, and yet we do not amend our own shortcomings."

"We desire rules to be made restraining others, but by no means will we suffer ourselves to be restrained. Thus therefore doth it plainly appear how seldom we weigh our neighbour in the same balance with ourselves."

"Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit."

"We ought daily to renew our vows, and to kindle our hearts to zeal, as if each day were the first day of our conversion, and to say, “Help me, O God, in my good resolutions, and in Thy holy service, and grant that this day I may make a good beginning, for hitherto I have done nothing!”"

"For if he who resolveth bravely oftentimes falleth short, how shall it be with him who resolveth rarely or feebly?"

"In the morning make thy resolves, and in the evening inquire into thy life, how thou hast sped to-day in word, deed, and thought;"

"Be thou never without something to do; be reading, or writing, or praying, or meditating, or doing something that is useful to the community."

"What canst thou see elsewhere which thou canst not see here? Behold the heaven and the earth and all the elements; for of these are all things created."

"It is easier not to speak a word at all than to speak more words than we should."

"No man ruleth safely but that he is willingly ruled."

"Seek a suitable time for thy meditation, and think frequently of the mercies of God to thee."

"The greatest saints used to avoid as far as they could the company of men, and chose to live in secret with God."

"One hath said, “As oft as I have gone among men, so oft have I returned less a man.” This is what we often experience when we have been long time in conversation."

"Thou art miserable wheresoever thou art, and whithersoever thou turnest, unless thou turn thee to God."

"So long as we carry about with us this frail body, we cannot be without sin, we cannot live without weariness and trouble."

"Arise, begin this very moment, and say, “Now is the time to do: now is the time to fight, now is the proper time for amendment.”"

"There is no man in the world free from trouble or anguish, though he were King or Pope."

"Thou oughtest in every deed and thought so to order thyself, as if thou wert to die this day."

"If to-day thou art not ready, how shalt thou be ready to-morrow? To-morrow is an uncertain day; and how knowest thou that thou shalt have a to-morrow?"

"Happy is the man who hath the hour of his death always before his eyes, and daily prepareth himself to die."

"For a perfect contempt of the world, a fervent desire to excel in virtue, the love of discipline, the painfulness of repentance, readiness to obey, denial of self, submission to any adversity for love of Christ; these are the things which shall give great confidence of a happy death. Whilst thou art in health thou hast many opportunities of good works; but when thou art in sickness I know not how much thou wilt be able to do."

"How many times hast thou heard how one was slain by the sword, another was drowned, another falling from on high broke his neck, another died at the table, another whilst at play! One died by fire, another by the sword, another by the pestilence, another by the robber. Thus cometh death to all, and the life of men swiftly passeth away like a shadow."

"Now the time is most precious. Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation."

"And when he is out of sight, quickly also is he out of mind."

"Learn now to suffer a little, that then thou mayest be enabled to escape heavier sufferings."

"All therefore is vanity, save to love God and to serve Him only. ."

"He that avoideth not small faults, by little and little falleth into greater."

"There is no great trust to be placed in a frail and mortal man, even though he be useful and dear to us, neither should much sorrow arise within us if sometimes he oppose and contradict us. They who are on thy side to-day, may to-morrow be against thee, and often are they turned round like the wind. Put thy whole trust in God and let Him be thy fear and thy love, He will answer for thee Himself, and will do for thee what is best."

"All things pass away and thou equally with them. Look that thou cleave not to them lest thou be taken with them and perish."

"Make no great account who is for thee or against thee, but mind only the present duty and take care that God be with thee in whatsoever thou doest."

"God protecteth and delivereth the humble man, He loveth and comforteth the humble man, to the humble man He inclineth Himself, on the humble He bestoweth great grace, and when he is cast down He raiseth him to glory: to the humble He revealeth His secrets, and sweetly draweth and inviteth him to Himself."

"First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others."

"A passionate man turneth even good into evil and easily believeth evil; a good, peaceable man converteth all things into good."

". . . be able to live peaceably with the hard and perverse, or with the disorderly, or those who oppose us, this is a great grace and a thing much to be commended and most worthy of a man."

". . . all our peace in this sad life lieth in humble suffering rather than in not feeling adversities. He who best knoweth how to suffer shall possess the most peace;"

"Simplicity and purity are the two wings by which a man is lifted above all earthly things. Simplicity is in the intention; purity in the affection. Simplicity tends to God; purity apprehends and tastes Him."

"There is no creature so small and abject, that it representeth not the goodness of God."

"As iron cast into the fire loseth rust and is made altogether glowing, so the man who turneth himself altogether unto God is freed from slothfulness and changed into a new man."

"If thou think wholly upon thyself and upon God, what thou seest out of doors shall move thee little."

"Thou art none the holier if thou art praised, nor the viler if thou art reproached. Thou art what thou art; and thou canst not be better than God pronounceth thee to be."

"As it is written, To him that overcometh I will give to eat of the tree of life. Divine comfort is given that a man may be stronger to bear adversities."

"Dispose thyself to patience rather than to comfort, and to the bearing of the cross rather than to gladness."

"Jesus hath many lovers of His heavenly kingdom, but few bearers of His Cross."

"But they who love Jesus for Jesus’ sake, and not for any consolation of their own, bless Him in all tribulation and anguish of heart as in the highest consolation."

"What is it then? That having given up all things besides, he give up himself and go forth from himself utterly, and retain nothing of self-love; and having done all things which he knoweth to be his duty to do, that he feel that he hath done nothing."

"If thou bear it unwillingly, thou makest a burden for thyself and greatly increaseth thy load, and yet thou must bear it. If thou cast away one cross, without doubt thou shalt find another and perchance a heavier."

". . . dost thou seek for thyself rest and joy? Thou art wrong, thou art wrong, if thou seekest aught but to suffer tribulations, for this whole mortal life is full of miseries, and set round with crosses."

". . . there is no means of escaping from tribulation and sorrow, except to bear them patiently."

"So long as it is hard to thee to suffer and thou desirest to escape, so long it will not be well with thee, and tribulations will follow thee everywhere."

"For our worthiness and growth in grace lieth not in many delights and consolations, but rather in bearing many troubles and adversities."

". . . speak Thou, O Lord, who didst inspire and illuminate all the prophets;"

"For a little reward men make a long journey; for eternal life many will scarce lift a foot once from the ground."

"thou art far weaker than thou art able to comprehend. Let, therefore, nothing which thou doest seem to thee great; let nothing be grand, nothing of value or beauty, nothing worthy of honour, nothing lofty, nothing praiseworthy or desirable, save what is eternal"

"Deliver me from evil passions, and cleanse my heart from all inordinate affections, that, being healed and altogether cleansed within, I may be made ready to love, strong to suffer, steadfast to endure."

"Love is swift, sincere, pious, pleasant, gentle, strong, patient, faithful, prudent, long-suffering, manly and never seeking her own; for whosoever a man seeketh his own, there he falleth from love."

"‘Depart unclean spirit; put on shame, miserable one; horribly unclean art thou, who bringest such things to mine ears. Depart from me, detestable deceiver; thou shalt have no part in me; but Jesus shall be with me, as a strong warrior, and thou shalt stand confounded. Rather would I die and bear all suffering, than consent unto thee."

"They who enter the narrow way of life for Thy Name’s sake, and have put away all worldly cares, shall attain great liberty of spirit."

"O Lord God, I see that patience is very necessary unto me; for many things in this life fall out contrary."

"Of two evils, the less is always to be chosen."

"There is no more grievous and deadly enemy to the soul than thou art to thyself, if thou art not led by the Spirit."

"I became the most humble and despised of men, that by My humility thou mightest overcome thy pride."

"What is all flesh in Thy sight? For how shall the clay boast against Him that fashioned it?"

"Grant that I may die to all worldly things, and for Thy sake love to be despised and unknown in this world."

". . . do with me what Thou wilt, for whatsoever Thou shalt do with me cannot be aught but good. Blessed be Thou if Thou wilt leave me in darkness:"

"I gently bore contradictions and hard words; I received ingratitude for benefits, blasphemies for My miracles, rebukes for My doctrine."

"And say not ‘I cannot bear these things from such a man, nor are things of this kind to be borne by me, for he hath done me grievous harm and imputeth to me what I had never thought: but from another I will suffer patiently, such things as I see I ought to suffer.’ Foolish is such a thought as this, for it considereth not the virtue of patience, nor by whom that virtue is to be crowned, but it rather weigheth persons and offences against self."

"Strive, My Son, to do another’s will rather than thine own. Choose always to have less rather than more. Seek always after the lowest place, and to be subject to all. Wish always and pray that the will of God be fulfilled in thee."

"watch thou thyself in godly peace, and leave him who is unquiet to be unquiet as he will. Whatsoever he shall do or say, shall come unto him, for he cannot deceive Me. Trouble not thyself about the shadow of a great name, nor about the friendship of many, nor about the love of men towards thee. For these things beget distraction and great sorrows of heart."

"Know thou that the love of thyself is more hurtful to thee than anything in the world."

"Grant me prudently to avoid the flatterer, and patiently to bear with him that opposeth me;"

"And he who seeketh not to please men, nor feareth to displease, shall enjoy abundant peace."

"What doth care about future events bring thee, save sorrow upon sorrow? Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. It is vain and useless to be disturbed or lifted up about future things which perhaps will never come."

"O Lord, self-renunciation is not the work of one day, nor children's sport; yea, rather in this word is included all perfection."

"Thou dwellest among foes, and art attacked on the right hand and on the left. If therefore thou use not on all sides the shield of patience, thou wilt not remain long unwounded."

"If thou seek rest in this life, how wilt them then attain to the everlasting rest? Dispose not thyself for much rest, but for great patience. Seek true peace — not in earth, but in heaven; not in men, nor in any other creature, but in God alone."

"For the love of God thou must willingly undergo all things, whether labours or sorrows, temptations, vexations, anxieties, necessities, infirmities, injuries, gainsayings, rebukes, humiliations, confusions, corrections, despisings;"

"Thinkest thou that thou shalt always have spiritual consolations at thy will? My Saints had never such, but instead thereof manifold griefs, and divers temptations, and heavy desolations."

"Many men have many opinions, and therefore little trust is to be placed in them."

"Fear God and thou shalt not quail before the terrors of men."

"My Son, make it no matter of thine, if thou see others honoured and exalted, and thyself despised and humbled. Lift up thine heart to Me in heaven, and then the contempt of men upon earth will not make thee sad."

"I am He who in an instant lift up the humble spirit, to learn more reasonings of the Eternal Truth, than if a man had studied ten years in the schools. I teach without noise of words, without confusion of opinions, without striving after honour, without clash of arguments. I am He who teach men to despise earthly things, to loathe things present, to seek things heavenly, to enjoy things eternal, to flee honours, to endure offences, to place all hope in Me, to desire nothing apart from Me, and above all things to love Me ardently."

"That which profiteth little or nothing is looked after, and that which is altogether necessary is negligently passed by;"

"That we must give ourselves to humble works when we are unequal to those that are lofty"

"“My Son, pay diligent heed to the motions of Nature and of Grace, because they move in a very contrary and subtle manner, and are hardly distinguished save by a spiritual and inwardly enlightened man. All men indeed seek good, and make pretence of something good in all that they say or do; and thus under the appearance of good many are deceived."

"Without the Way, there is no going, Without the Truth, there is no knowing, Without the Life, there is no living."

"My Son, patience and humility in adversities are more pleasing to Me than much comfort and devotion in prosperity."

"All is not frustrated, though thou find thyself very often afflicted or grievously tempted. Thou art man, not God; thou art flesh, not an angel."

"My Son, beware thou dispute not of high matters and of the hidden judgments of God; why this man is thus left, and that man is taken into so great favour; why also this man is so greatly afflicted, and that so highly exalted. These things pass all man’s power of judging, neither may any reasoning or disputation have power to search out the divine judgments. When therefore the enemy suggesteth these things to thee, or when any curious people ask such questions, answer with that word of the Prophet, Just art Thou, O Lord, and true is Thy judgment, and with this, The judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. My judgments are to be feared, not to be disputed on, because they are incomprehensible to human understanding."

"Even though Thou dost expose me to divers temptations and adversities, Thou ordainest all this unto my advantage, for Thou are wont to prove Thy beloved ones in a thousand ways."

"Lament grievously and be sorry, because thou art still so carnal and worldly, so unmortified from thy passions, so full of the motion of concupiscence, so unguarded in thine outward senses, so often entangled in many vain fancies, so much inclined to outward things, so negligent of internal; so ready to laughter and dissoluteness, so unready to weeping and contrition; so prone to ease and indulgence of the flesh, so dull to zeal and fervour; so curious to hear novelties and behold beauties, so loth to embrace things humble and despised; so desirous to have many things, so grudging in giving, so close in keeping; so inconsiderate in speaking, so reluctant to keep silence; so disorderly in manners, so inconsiderate in actions; so eager after food, so deaf towards the Word of God; so eager after rest, so slow to labour; so watchful after tales, so sleepy towards holy watchings; so eager for the end of them, so wandering in attention to them; so negligent in observing the hours of prayer, so lukewarm in celebrating, so unfruitful in communicating; so quickly distracted, so seldom quite collected with thyself; so quickly moved to anger, so ready for displeasure at others; so prone to judging, so severe at reproving; so joyful in prosperity, so weak in adversity; so often making many good resolutions and bringing them to so little effect."

"I offer also to Thee prayers and Sacramental intercessions for those specially who have injured me in aught, made me sad, or spoken evil concerning me, or have caused me any loss or displeasure; for all those also whom I have at any time made sad, disturbed, burdened, and scandalized, by words or deeds, knowingly or ignorantly; that to all of us alike, Thou mayest equally pardon our sins and mutual offences. Take away, O Lord, from our hearts all suspicion, indignation, anger, and contention, and whatsoever is able to injure charity and diminish brotherly love. Have mercy, have mercy, Lord, on those who entreat Thy mercy; give grace to the needy; and make us such that we may be worthy to enjoy Thy grace, and go forward to the life eternal."

"For they truly know their Lord in the breaking of bread, whose heart within them so vehemently burneth, whilst Thou, O blessed Jesus, dost walk and converse with them."

"The book of Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, has long been appreciated in the East not only by virtue of its content but because of the meaning of its title. In the midst of medieval idolatry of Christ, the voice of Thomas à Kempis resounded in protest. From behind the walls of a Catholic monastery rang out a voice to clarify the Image of the Great Teacher. The very word imitation comprises a vital action. The formula — Imitation of Christ — is an achievement of daring innate in the conscious spirit that accepts all responsibility of creation. Truly, the conscious pupil dares to approach the Teacher in imitation. Such an example brought light into the musty darkness and behind the monastic walls provided the impetus to strive toward creative daring. In accordance with the groveling medieval consciousness, it would have been fitting to say, "The Worship of Christ." But the ascendant spirit dared to pronounce a call to imitation. Each step of blessed daring must be cherished as a milestone in the progress of humanity. We do not give attention to monastic utterances. Thomas had no need to climb to the stake — his task was to proclaim not the forbidden but the inspiring formula."

"Neque assueto mutet amore torum."

"Nudus Amor formam non amat artificem."

"Navita de ventis, de tauris narrat arator, Enumerat miles vulnera, pastor oves."

"Qua pote quisque, in ea conterat arte diem."

"Aut patrio qualis ponit vestigia ponto Mille Venus teneris cincta Cupidinibus."

"Quod si deficiant vires, audacia certe Laus erit: in magnis et voluisse sat est."

"Quicumque ille fuit, puerum qui pinxit Amorem nonne putas miras hunc habuisse manus? is primum vidit sine sensu vivere amantes"

"Nemo in amore videt."

"Errat, qui finem vesani quaerit amoris: verus amor nullum novit habere modum"

"Absenti nemo non nocuisse velit."

"Unus quisque sua noverit ire via."

"Semper in absentes felicior aestus amantes."

"Cedite Romani scriptores, cedite Grai! Nescio quid maius nascitur Iliade."

"Sunt aliquid Manes: letum non omnia finit, Luridaque evictos effugit umbra rogos."

"Magnum iter ascendo; sed dat mihi gloria vires"

"Fortes indigne tuli Mihi insultare: te, nature dedecus, Quod ferre certe cogor, bis videor mori."

"Ill have I brook’d that nobler foes Should triumph o’er my dying woes: But, scorn of nature, forced to lie And take thy taunts, is twice to die."

"Submit to the present evil, lest a greater one befall you."

"He who covets what belongs to another deservedly loses his own."

"That it is unwise to be heedless ourselves while we are giving advice to others, I will show in a few lines."

"Whoever has even once become notorious by base fraud, even if he speaks the truth, gains no belief."

"By this story [The Fox and the Raven] it is shown how much ingenuity avails, and how wisdom is always an overmatch for strength."

"No one returns with good-will to the place which has done him a mischief."

"It has been related that dogs drink at the river Nile running along, that they may not be seized by the crocodiles."

"Every one is bound to bear patiently the results of his own example."

"Come of it what may, as Sinon said."

"Non semper ea sunt quae videntur."

"Jupiter has loaded us with a couple of wallets: the one, filled with our own vices, line he has placed at our backs; the other, lie heavy with those of others, he has hung before."

"A mountain was in labour, sending forth dreadful groans, and there was in the region the highest expectation. After all, it brought forth a mouse."

"A fly bit the bare pate of a bald man, who in endeavouring to crush it gave himself a hard slap. Then said the fly jeeringly, "You wanted to revenge the sting of a tiny insect with death; what will you do to yourself, who have added insult to injury?""

"Once lost, Jupiter himself cannot bring back opportunity."

""I knew that before you were born." Let him who would instruct a wiser man consider this as said to himself."

"Homo doctus in se semper divitias habet."

"Modestus said of Regulus that he was "the biggest rascal that walks upon two legs.""

"Meminimus quanto maiore animo honestatis fructus in conscientia quam in fama reponatur. Sequi enim gloria, non appeti debet."

"Homines enim cum rem destruere non possunt, iactationem eius incessunt. Ita si silenda feceris, factum ipsum, si laudanda non sileas, ipse culparis."

"There is nothing to write about, you say. Well, then, write and let me know just this,—that there is nothing to write about; or tell me in the good old style if you are well. That's right. I am quite well."

"I contemplate the sort of friend, the sort of man I am now without. He completed his sixty-seventh year, a reasonable age for the sturdiest of us; I acknowledge that. He escaped from an interminable illness; I acknowledge that. He died with his dear ones surviving him, and at a time of prosperity for the state, which was dearer to him than all else; that too I acknowledge. Yet I lament his death as though he were young and in glowing health. I lament it—you can consider me a weakling in this—on my own account, for I have lost the witness, guardian and teacher of my life."

"Quod dubites, ne feceris."

"Usus, magister egregius."

"Quam peritus ille et privati iuris et publici! quantum rerum, quantum exemplorum, quantum antiquitatis tenet! Nihil est quod discere velis quod ille docere non possit; mihi certe quotiens aliquid abditum quaero, ille thesaurus est."

"Ornat haec magnitudo animi, quae nihil ad ostentationem, omnia ad conscientiam refert recteque facti non ex populi sermone mercedem, sed ex facto petit."

"Plenus annis abit, plenus honoribus."

"The living voice is that which sways the soul."

"Numerantur enim sententiae, non ponderantur; nec aliud in publico consilio potest fieri, in quo nihil est tam inaequale quam aequalitas ipsa."

"Rarum id quidem nihil enim aeque gratum est adeptis quam concupiscentibus."

"Vita hominum altos recessus magnasque latebras habet."

"Quamlibet saepe obligati, si quid unum neges, hoc solum meminerunt quod negatum est."

"Dicere etiam solebat nullum esse librum tam malum ut non aliqua parte prodesset.."

"Multi famam, conscientiam pauci verentur."

"Neque enim minus apud nos honestas quam apud alios necessitas valet."

"Omnes enim, qui gloria famaque ducuntur, mirum in modum assensio et laus a minoribus etiam profecta delectat."

"Educentur hic qui hic nascuntur, statimque ab infantia natale solum amare frequentare consuescant."

"By then day had broken everywhere, but here it was still night—no, more than night."

"Dixi omnia cum hominem nominavi."

"Utque in corporibus sic in imperio gravissimus est morbus, qui a capite diffunditur."

"Si computes annos, exiguum tempus, si vices rerum, aevum putes."

"Mihi autem videtur acerba semper et immatura mors eorum, qui immortale aliquid parant."

"Proinde, dum suppetit vita, enitamur ut mors quam paucissima quae abolere possit inveniat."

"Est omnino iniquum, sed usu receptum, quod honesta consilia vel turpia, prout male aut prospere cedunt, ita vel probantur vel reprehenduntur."

"Nescit enim semel incitata liberalitas stare, cuius pulchritudinem usus ipse commendat."

"O morte ipsa mortis tempus indignius!"

"This expression of ours, "Father of a family.""

"Poetis mentiri licet."

"Quam multum interest quid a quoque fiat!"

"Multum legendum esse, non multa."

"In numero ipso est quoddam magnum collatumque consilium, quibusque singulis iudicii parum, omnibus plurimum."

"Oportet privatis utilitatibus publicas, mortalibus aeternas anteferre, multoque diligentius muneri suo consulere quam facultatibus."

"Everything was done."

"Nam nec historia debet egredi veritatem, et honeste factis veritas sufficit."

"Olim nescio quid sit otium quid quies, quid denique illud iners quidem, iucundum tamen nihil agere nihil esse."

"Est enim quaedam etiam dolendi voluptas, praesertim si in amici sinu defleas, apud quem lacrimis tuis vel laus sit parata vel venia."

"Parvolum differt, patiaris adversa an exspectes; nisi quod tamen est dolendi modus, non est timendi. Doleas enim quantum scias accidisse, timeas quantum possit accidere."

"Falsum est nimirum quod creditur vulgo, testamenta hominum speculum esse morum."

"Ad quae noscenda iter ingredi, transmittere mare solemus, ea sub oculis posita neglegimu. ... Differimus tamquam saepe visuri, quod datur videre quotiens velis cernere."

"Impensa monumenti supervacua est; memoria nostri durabit, si vita meruimus."

"Neque enim soli iudicant qui maligne legunt."

"Nihil peccat, nisi quod nihil peccat."

"Ut satius unum aliquid insigniter facere quam plura mediocriter, ita plurima mediocriter, si non possis unum aliquid insigniter."

"Ea invasit homines habendi cupido, ut possideri magis quam possidere videantur."

"Quamquam longissimus, dies cito conditur."

"Sine auctore vero propositi libelli nullo crimine locum habere debent. Nam et pessimi exempli nec nostri saeculi est."

"Habet has vices conditio mortalium, ut adversa ex secundis, ex adversis secunda nascantur."

"Secunda felices, adversa magnos probent."

"This age of ours consequently has let fall, bit by bit, some of the richest and sweetest fruits that the tree of knowledge has yielded; has thrown away the results of the vigils and labours of the most illustrious men of genius, things of more value, I am almost tempted to say, than anything else in the whole world."

"To-day I made the ascent of the highest mountain in this region, which is not improperly called Ventosum. My only motive was the wish to see what so great an elevation had to offer. I have had the expedition in mind for many years; for, as you know, I have lived in this region from infancy, having been cast here by that fate which determines the affairs of men. Consequently the mountain, which is visible from a great distance, was ever before my eyes, and I conceived the plan of some time doing what I have at last accomplished to-day."

"I rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct. I had well-nigh forgotten where I was and our object in coming; but at last I dismissed my anxieties, which were better suited to other surroundings, and resolved to look about me and see what we had come to see. The sinking sun and the lengthening shadows of the mountain were already warning us that the time was near at hand when we must go. As if suddenly wakened from sleep, I turned about and gazed toward the west. I was unable to discern the summits of the Pyrenees, which form the barrier between France and Spain; not because of any intervening obstacle that I know of but owing simply to the insufficiency of our mortal vision."

"My brother, waiting to hear something of St. Augustine's from my lips, stood attentively by. I call him, and God too, to witness that where I first fixed my eyes it was written: "And men go about to wonder at the heights of the mountains, and the mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers, and the circuit of the ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but themselves they consider not." I was abashed, and, asking my brother (who was anxious to hear more), not to annoy me, I closed the book, angry with myself that I should still be admiring earthly things who might long ago have learned from even the pagan philosophers that nothing is wonderful but the soul, which, when great itself, finds nothing great outside itself. Then, in truth, I was satisfied that I had seen enough of the mountain; I turned my inward eye upon myself, and from that time not a syllable fell from my lips until we reached the bottom again. Those words had given me occupation enough, for I could not believe that it was by a mere accident that I happened upon them. What I had there read I believed to be addressed to me and to no other, remembering that St. Augustine had once suspected the same thing in his own case, when, on opening the book of the Apostle, as he himself tells us, the first words that he saw there were, "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.""

"Hitherto your eyes have been darkened and you have looked too much, yes, far too much, upon the things of earth. If these so much delight you what shall be your rapture when you lift your gaze to things eternal! When I heard her thus speak, though my fear still clung about me, with trembling voice I made reply in Virgil's words —"

"Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together."

"Man has no greater enemy than himself. I have acted contrary to my sentiments and inclination; throughout our whole lives we do what we never intended, and what we proposed to do, we leave undone."

"Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good."

"To begin with myself, then, the utterances of men concerning me will differ widely, since in passing judgment almost every one is influenced not so much by truth as by preference, and good and evil report alike know no bounds."

"I certainly will not reject the praise you bestow upon me for having stimulated in many instances, not only in Italy but perhaps beyond its confines also, the pursuit of studies such as ours, which have suffered neglect for so many centuries; I am, indeed, almost the oldest of those among us who are engaged in the cultivation of these subjects. But I cannot accept the conclusion you draw from this, namely, that I should give place to younger minds, and, interrupting the plan of work on which I am engaged, give others an opportunity to write something, if they will, and not seem longer to desire to reserve everything for my own pen. How radically do our opinions differ, although, at bottom, our object is the same! I seem to you to have written everything, or at least a great deal, while to myself I appear to have produced almost nothing."

"You, my friend, by a strange confusion of arguments, try to dissuade me from continuing my chosen work by urging, on the one hand, the hopelessness of bringing my task to completion, and by dwelling, on the other, upon the glory which I have already acquired. Then, after asserting that I have filled the world with my writings, you ask me if I expect to equal the number of volumes written by Origen or Augustine. No one, it seems to me, can hope to equal Augustine. Who, nowadays, could hope to equal one who, in my judgment, was the greatest in an age fertile in great minds? As for Origen, you know that I am wont to value quality rather than quantity, and I should prefer to have produced a very few irreproachable works rather than numberless volumes such as those of Origen, which are filled with grave and intolerable errors."

"Continued work and application form my soul's nourishment. So soon as I commenced to rest and relax I should cease to live. I know my own powers. I am not fitted for other kinds of work, but my reading and writing, which you would have me discontinue, are easy tasks, nay, they are a delightful rest, and relieve the burden of heavier anxieties. There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen. Other pleasures fail us or wound us while they charm, but the pen we take up rejoicing and lay down with satisfaction, for it has the power to advantage not only its lord and master, but many others as well, even though they be far away — sometimes, indeed, though they be not born for thousands of years to come. I believe I speak but the strict truth when I claim that as there is none among earthly delights more noble than literature, so there is none so lasting, none gentler, or more faithful; there is none which accompanies its possessor through the vicissitudes of life at so small a cost of effort or anxiety."

"Books have led some to learning and others to madness, when they swallow more than they can digest."

"How fortune brings to earth the over-sure!"

"It is better to will the good than to know the truth."

"It is more honorable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one. Fortune bestows the one, merit obtains the other."

"Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure."

"Five enemies of peace inhabit with us — avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace."

"Here I have established my Rome, my Athens, and my spiritual fatherland; here I gather all the friends I now have or did have, not only those ... who have lived with me, but also those who died many centuries ago, known to me only through their writings. ... I am where I wish to be."

"O thou of all knowledge and of all wisdom, true and only God, thou giver of true glory, Lord of all virtue, supreme Saviour Jesus, see that supplicant and in my soul genuflected before thee I sincerely beg thee that, if thou wilt not give me anything else, at least grant me this, that I may be a good man: Nor will I ever be such except by loving Thee greatly and devoutly adoring Thee, for this I was born, not for letters; which, if they alone occupy the mind, swell and destroy instead of edifying, and are to the soul shining chains, painful travail, thunderous burden."

"(About king David) I would like to have his Psalter in my hands and before my eyes during the day, and under my head at night and at the point of death, considering this a source of glory for me not less than for the greatest philosophers, the mimes of Sophron."

"Voi ch'ascoltate in rime sparse il suono di quei sospiri ond'io nudriva 'l core in sul mio primo giovenile errore quand'era in parte altr'uom da quel ch'i' sono."

"Et del mio vaneggiar vergogna è 'l frutto, e 'l pentersi, e 'l conoscer chiaramente che quanto piace al mondo è breve sogno."

"Ché i be' vostr'occhi, donna, mi legaro."

"Who overrefines his argument brings himself to grief."

"Tempo da travagliare è quanto è 'l giorno."

"Ma pur sí aspre vie né sí selvagge cercar non so ch'Amor non venga sempre ragionando con meco, et io co llui."

"Ahi nova gente oltra misura altera, irreverente a tanta et a tal madre!"

"Per fama huom s'innamora."

"Inanzi al dí de l'ultima partita huom beato chiamar non si convene."

"Da'duo begli occhi che legato m'ànno."

"Perché la vita è breve, et l'ingegno paventa a l'alta impresa, né di lui né di lei molto mi fido."

"Questa vita terrena è quasi un prato, che 'l serpente tra' fiori et l'erba giace; et s'alcuna sua vista agli occhi piace, è per lassar piú l'animo invescato."

"Voi dunque, se cercate aver la mente anzi l'extremo dí queta già mai, seguite i pochi, et non la volgar gente."

"Vinse Hanibàl, et non seppe usar poi ben la vittoriosa sua ventura."

"Pandolfo mio, quest'opere son frali da ll lungo andar, ma 'l nostro studio è quello dche fa per fama gli uomini immortali."

"Amor regge suo imperio senza spada."

"Intendami chi pò, ch'i' m'intend'io."

"Proverbio "ama chi t'ama" è fatto antico."

"Per bene star si scende molte miglia."

"Tal par gran meraviglia, et poi si sprezza."

"Una chiusa bellezza è piú soave."

"Né del vulgo mi cal, né di Fortuna."

"Vero è 'l proverbio, ch'altri cangia il pelo anzi che 'l vezzo."

"Le bionde treccie sopra il collo sciolte."

"Io parlo per ver dire, non per odio d'altrui, né per disprezzo."

"S'amor non è, che dunque è quel ch'io sento? Ma s'egli è amor, perdio, che cosa et quale? Se bona, onde l'effecto aspro mortale? Se ria, onde sí dolce ogni tormento?"

"Pace non trovo, et non ò da far guerra; e temo, et spero; et ardo, et son un ghiaccio."

"Ché bel fin fa chi ben amando more."

"Sarò qual fui, vivrò com'io son visso."

"Sol se stessa, et nulla altra, simiglia."

"Pien d'un vago penser che me desvia da tutti gli altri."

"Chi po dir com'egli arde è 'n picciol foco."

"Un bel morir tutta la vita honora."

"Beato in sogno et di languir contento, d'abbracciar l'ombre et seguir l'aura estiva, nuoto per mar che non à fondo o riva, solco onde, e 'n rena fondo, et scrivo in vento."

"Il sonno è veramente, qual uom dice, parente de la morte, e 'l cor sottragge a quel dolce penser che 'n vita il tene."

"Le città son nemiche, amici i boschi."

"Nulla al mondo è che non possano i versi."

"L'alta beltà ch'al mondo non à pare noia t'è, se non quanto il bel thesoro di castità par ch'ella adorni et fregi."

"Co la morte a lato cerco del viver mio novo consiglio, et veggio 'l meglio, et al peggior m'appiglio."

"Non è sí duro cor che, lagrimando, pregando, amando, talor non si smova, né sí freddo voler, che non si scalde."

"Ché 'ncontra 'l ciel non val difesa humana."

"La vita fugge, et non s'arresta una hora."

"Veramente siam noi polvere et ombra, veramente la voglia cieca e 'ngorda, veramente fallace è la speranza."

"L'acque parlan d'amore, et l'òra e i rami et gli augelletti et i pesci e i fiori et l'erba, tutti inseme pregando ch'i' sempre ami.'Ma tu, ben nata, che dal ciel mi chiami, per la memoria di tua morte acerba preghi ch'i' sprezzi 'l mondo e i suoi dolci hami."

"I' so' colei che ti die' tanta guerra, et compie' mia giornata inanzi sera."

"Cosí nel mondo sua ventura à ciascun dal dí che nasce."

"O che lieve è inganar chi s'assecura!"

"Canzon, s'uom trovi in suo amor viver queto, di': Muor' mentre se' lieto, ché morte al tempo è non duol, ma refugio; et chi ben pò morir, non cerchi indugio."

"Ei sa che 'l vero parlo: ché legno vecchio mai non róse tarlo."

"Obedir a Natura in tutto è il meglio."

"Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, He would have written sonnets all his life?"

"Petrarch was the final blossom and perfection of the Troubadours."

"Lovely Laura in her light green dress, And faithful Petrarch gloriously crowned."

"Francesco Petrarca, the mirror of our century, after completing a vast array of volumes, on reaching his seventy-first year, closed his last day in his library. He was found leaning over a book as if sleeping, so that his death was not at first suspected by his household."

"The reason for this contrast between the French and the Italian mediaeval literature is not far to seek. Allegory is a characteristically mediaeval form; and in Italy the Middle Ages began so late and the Renaissance came so early that that country never had the opportunity to fall completely under the spell that held France from the time of the Roman de la Rose till the end of the fifteenth century. Thus Petrarch, in spite of the fact that he wrote perhaps more pure allegory than any other Italian, was at the same time an enthusiast for the New Learning."

"Petrarch, a character on whom I never think but with love, formed his mind entirely in Solitude, and there rendered himself capable of transacting the most important political affairs. Petrarch was, doubtless, sometimes what persons frequently become in Solitude, satirical, peevish and choleric. He has, in particular, been reproached with great severities, on account of his lively pictures of the manners of his age, and especially his description of the infamous vices practised at Avignon, during the pontificate of the sixth Clement. But Petrarch possessed a profound knowledge of the human heart, and extraordinary address in working upon the passions and directing them as he pleased. The Abbé de Sade, the best historian of his life, says, that he is scarcely known, but as the tender and elegant poet, who loved with ardor and sung in the most impassioned strains the charms of his mistress; and that nothing more is known of his character. Even authors are ignorant of the obligations which literature owes him; that he rescued it from the barbarism beneath which it had so long been buried; that he saved the best works of the ancient writers from dust and destruction, and that all these treasures would have been lost to us, if he had not sought and procured correct copies of them."

"It is not perhaps, generally known, that he first revived the study of the Belles Lettres in Europe; that he purified the taste of the age; that he himself thought and wrote like a citizen of ancient and independent Rome; that he extirpated numerous prejudices, and paved the way to further improvements, in the circle of human knowledge; that to the hour of his death, he continued to exercise his distinguished talents, and in each successive work always surpassed the preceding. Still less is it known, that Petrarch was an able statesman; that the greatest sovereigns of his age confided to him the most difficult negotiations, and consulted him on their most important concerns; that in the fourteenth century, he possessed a higher reputation, credit and influence, than any man of learning of the present day; that three popes, an emperor, a king of France, a sovereign of Naples, a crowd of cardinals, the greatest princes, and most illustrious lords of Italy, courted his friendship, and desired his company; that, as a statesman, an ambassador and minister they employed him in the most intricate affairs of those times; that, in return, he was not backward in telling them the most unpleasant truths; that Solitude alone supplied him with all this power; that none was better acquainted with its advantages, Cherished them with such fondness, or extolled them with such energy, and at length, preferred leisure and liberty to every other consideration. He appeared, a long time, enervated by love, to which he had devoted the prime of his life, but he suddenly abandoned the soft and effeminate tone, in which he sighed at the feet of his Laura. He then addressed himself, with manly boldness, to kings, emperors, and popes, and always with that confidence which splendid talents and high reputation inspire."

"Si hubiera estado presente en la Creación, habría dado algunas indicaciones útiles."

"Los que dejan al rey errar a sabiendas, merecen pena como traidores."

"Quemad viejos leños, leed viejos libros, bebed viejos vinos, tened viejos amigos."

"For whan men wene best to have achieved, Ful ofte it is al newe to beginne: The werre hath no thing siker, thogh he winne."

"Bot for men sein, and soth it is, That who that al of wisdom writ It dulleth ofte a mannes wit To him that schal it aldai rede, For thilke cause, if that ye rede, I wolde go the middel weie And wryte a bok betwen the tweie, Somwhat of lust, somewhat of lore."

"But in proverbe I have herde say, That who that wel his werk beginneth, The rather a good end he winneth."

"For loves lawe is out of reule."

"It hath and schal ben everemor That love is maister wher he wile."

"He hath the sor which no man heleth, The which is cleped lack of herte."

"O fol of alle foles, Thou farst as he betwen tuo stoles That wolde sitte and goth to grounde."

"The beauté faye upon her face Non erthly thing it may desface."

"Nevere yit Was non, which half so loste his wit Of drinke, as thei of such thing do Which cleped is the jolif wo."

"What is a lond wher men ben none? What ben the men whiche are alone Withoute a kinges governance? What is a king in his ligance, Wher that ther is no lawe in londe? What is to take lawe on honde, Bot if the jugges weren trewe?"

"So goth the world, now wo, now wel"

"O moral Gower!"

"In the content of his work it is interesting to notice that he is profoundly English. His romanticism, and his choice of the theme of Time and Age – both these look back to the Anglo-Saxons and forward to the nineteenth century. Yet his form is French. The heart is insular and romantic, the head cool and continental: it is a good combination."

"Jejunis nil scribo: meum post pocula si quis legerit, hic sapiet. Sed magis hic sapiet, si dormiet: et putet ista somnia missa sibi."

"Quis color ille vadis, seras cum propulit umbras Hesperus et viridi perfudit monte Mosellam! tota natant crispis iuga motibus et tremit absens pampinus et vitreis vindemia turget in undis."

"Errantes silva in magna et sub luce maligna inter harundineasque comas gravidumque papaver et tacitos sine labe lacus, sine murmure rivos, quorum per ripas nebuloso lumine marcent fleti, olim regum et puerorum nomina, flores."

"Tot species, tantosque ortus variosque novatus una dies aperit, conficit ipsa dies."

"Collige, virgo, rosas, dum flos novus et nova pubes, et memor esto aevum sic properare tuum."

"Monumenta fatiscunt: mors etiam saxis nominibusque venit."

"Omne aevum curae; cunctis sua displicet aetas."

"Multis terribilis timeto multos."

"Iniurium est de poeta male sobrio lectorem abstemium iudicare."

"The poetical fame of Ausonius condemns the taste of his age."

"In the history of versification did anyone ever juggle so wildly well with iambics, sapphics, dactylics, anapestics, and all the rest? He fabricated verses most ingeniously, most enthusiastically. His virtuosity is amazing. Almost every line he wrote was a tour de force. And in spite of all this highly self-conscious technical facility he managed occasionally to write poetry."

"Ausonius must be read to be believed! As poet, no subject is too trivial for him; as courtier, no flattery too excessive."

"It is the things which Ausonius reveals unconsciously that win him liking, not those which he sets out to celebrate with a kind of innocent pomp: not the chair of rhetoric at twenty-five, nor the imperial tutorship in his fifties, nor the consulship at sixty-nine, but that he loved and taught rhetoric all his life, and kept his simplicity."

"Estuans intrinsecus ira vehementi in amaritudine loquar meę menti: factus de materia levis elementi similes sum folio de quo ludunt venti."

"Feror ego veluti sine nauta navis, ut per vias aeris vaga fertur avis, non me tenent vincula, non me tenet clavis, Quęro mihi similes, et adiungor pravis."

"Quicquid Venus imperat Labor est suavis, quę nunquam in cordibus habitat ignavis."

"Mortuus in anima curam gero cutis."

"Meum est propositum in taberna mori, ut sint vina proxima morientis ori."

"What's not devoured by Time’s devouring hand? Where's Troy, and where's the Maypole in the Strand?"

"But Titus said, with his uncommon sense, When the Exclusion Bill was in suspense: "I hear a lion in the lobby roar; Say, Mr. Speaker, shall we shut the door And keep him there, or shall we let him in To try if we can turn him out again?""

"So Britain’s monarch once uncovered sat, While Bradshaw bullied in a broad-brimmed hat."

"Minuit praesentia famam."

"Dis proximus ille est, quem ratio non ira movet."

"Peragit tranquilla potestas quod violenta nequit; mandataque fortius urget imperiosa quies."

"Vile latens virtus."

"Qui terret plus ipse timet."

"In commune iubes si quid censesque tenendum, primus iussa subi: tunc observantior aequi fit populus nec ferre negat, cum viderit ipsum auctorem parere sibi. componitur orbis regis ad exemplum, nec sic inflectere sensus humanos edicta valent quam vita regentis. Mobile mutatur semper cum principe vulgus."

"Iam non ad culmina rerum iniustos crevisse queror; tolluntur in altum ut lapsu graviore ruant."

"Natura beatis, omnibus esse dedit, si quis cognoverit uti."

"Omnia mors aequat."

"Paupertas me saeva domat dirusque Cupido: sed toleranda fames, non tolerandus amor."

"Nexuque pio longinqua revinxit."

"Fervent bella horrida, fervent ossibus inclusa fremit et discordibus armis non simplex natura hominis."

"Corde natus ex parentis Ante mundi exordium A et O cognominatus, ipse fons et clausula Omnium quae sunt, fuerunt, quaeque post futura sunt. Saeculorum saeculis."

"Nunc suscipe, terra, fovendum, gremioque hunc concipe molli. Hominis tibi membra sequestro, generosa et fragmina credo."

"Illic, precor, optime ductor, famulam tibi praecipe mentem, genitali in sede sacrari quam liquerat exsul et errans."

"Te spectem, suprema mihi cum venerit hora, Et teneam moriens deficiente manu."

"Audendum est: fortes adiuvat ipsa Venus."

"Nec iurare time: veneris periuria venti inrita per terras et freta summa ferunt. gratia magna Iovi: vetuit Pater ipse valere, iurasset cupide quidquid ineptus amor."

"Te propter nullos tellus tua postulat imbres, arida nec pluvio supplicat herba Iovi."

"Quis fuit, horrendos primus qui protulit enses? quam ferus et vere ferreus ille fuit!"

"Atque aliquis senior veteres veneratus amores annua constructo serta dabit tumulo, et "bene" discedens dicet "placideque quiescas, terraque securae sit super ossa levis.""

"Credula vitam spes fovet et fore cras semper ait melius."

"Illam, quidquid agit, quoquo vestigia movit, componit furtim subsequiturque Decor."

"Difficile est tristi fingere mente iocum."

"Periuria ridet amantum Iuppiter."

"Est nobis voluisse satis."

"The elegant, the tender, and the passionate Tibullus."

"Haec enim quae appellatur arithmetica inter ambigua mundi certissima ratione consistit, quam cum caelestibus aequaliter novimus: evidens ordo, pulchra dispositio, cognitio simplex, immobilis scientia, quae et superna continet et terrena custodit. quid est enim quod aut mensuram non habeat aut pondus excedat? omnia complectitur, cuncta moderatur et universa hinc pulchritudinem capiunt, quia sub modo ipsius esse noscuntur."

"Mores autem graves in spectaculis quis requirat? ad circum nesciunt convenire Catones. quicquid illic a gaudenti populo dicitur, iniuria non putatur. locus est qui defendit excessum. quorum garrulitas si patienter accipitur, ipsos quoque principes ornare monstratur."

"Quid enim illa praestantius, quae caeli machinam sonora dulcedine modulatur et naturae convenientiam ubique dispersam virtutis suae gratia comprehendit?"

"Paucos enim ratio capit, raros probabilis oblectat intentio: ad illud potius turba ducitur, quod ad remissionem curarum constat inventum. nam quicquid aestimat voluptuosum, hoe et ad beatitudinem temporum iudicat applicandum. quapropter largiamur expensas, non semper ex iudicio demus. expedit interdum desipere, ut populi possimus desiderata gaudia continere."

"Few men are controlled by reason, and few are pleased by a right purpose. The mob, rather, is led to what was plainly invented for oblivion of its cares. For it supposes that whatever serves its pleasure must also be linked to the happiness of the age. Therefore, let us grant the expenses, and not be forever giving from rational considerations. Sometimes it is useful to play the fool, and so control the joys the people long for."

"Mater criminum necessitas tollitur."

"Prima enim grammaticorum schola est fundamentum pulcherrimum litterarum, mater gloriosa facundiae."

"Grammatica magistra verborum, ornatrix humani generis, quae per exercitationem pulcherrimae lectionis antiquorum nos cognoscitur iuvare consiliis. hac non utuntur barbari reges: apud legales dominos manere cognoscitur singularis. arma enim et reliqua gentes habent: sola reperitur eloquentia, quae Romanorum dominis obsecundat."

"The great merit of Cassiodorus, that which shows his deep insight into the needs of his age and entitles him to the eternal gratitude of Europe, was his determination to utilise the vast leisure of the convent for the preservation of Divine and human learning and for its transmission to after ages."

"That long-lived ex-Quaestor of Theodoric the Ostrogoth – he died in 583 – if a supple and servile politician, was the greatest single contributor to the preservation of learning in the barbarized West…But for him and the learned turn he gave to Benedictine labours it is possible that no Latin classic, save Virgil, would have reached us complete."

"The men who ushered in the Dark Ages were men like Theodoric and Cassiodorus, who were intent on restoring the cities, preserving the statues, and transcribing the classics. Their adoration of the ancient world was matched only by their inability to understand it, for by the time that they were born, classical culture was already dead. They were the first of the great medievals and began to build a new civilization in an attempt to restore the old."

"The greatest advantage in gambling lies in not playing at all."

"Better it is to have the worst, than none at all. for example we see, that houses are nedefull, such as can not possese & stately pallaces of stone, do persuade themselves to dwell in houses of timber and clap, and wanting them, are contented to inhabite the simple cotage, yea rather than not to be housed at all refuse not the pore cabbon, and most beggerly cave. So necessarie is this gift of consolacion, as there livith no man, but that hathe cause to embrace it. for in these things better is it to have any than none at al."

"And wel we see ther is none alive that in every respect may be accompted happie, yea though mortall men were free from all calamities, yet the torments & feare of death should stil attend them But b:sides them, behold, what, and how manye evilles there bee, that unlesse the cloude of error bee removed, impossible it is to see the truth, or receive allay of our earthly woes."

"So shall we voyd of all craft and sail, with true reason declare how much each man erreth in life, judgement, opinion, and will. Some things there are that so wel do prove themselves, as besides nature nede no profe at all."

"Among other myseries what I pray you tá be greater than whē a man riseth frō bed in the morning, to be incertaine of his returne to rest againe. or being in bed, whether his life shall continue tyll he ryse. besydes that, what labour, what hazard & care, are men constrained to abyde with these our brittle bodies, our feeble force, and incertayne lyfe: so as no nacion I thinke a man better or more fitlye named than the Spaniard, who in their language do terme a man shadow. And sure ther is nothing to be found of lesse assurance or soner passed than the lyfe of man, no... may more rightly be resembled to a shadow."

"From these beginnings, as it were, have issued bitterness, contentious obstinancy, lack of amenity, hasty judgement, anger, and an intense desire for revenge—to say nothing of headstrong will; that which many damn, by word at least, was my delight."

"I am cold of heart, warm of brain, and given to never-ending meditation; I ponder over ideas, many and weighty, and even over things which can never come to pass."

"I am able to admit two distinct trains of thought to my mind at the same time."

"I have accustomed my features always to assume an expression quite contrary to my feelings; thus I am able to feign outwardly, yet within know nothing of dissumulation. This habit is easy if compared to the practice of hoping for nothing, which I have bent my efforts toward acquiring for fifteen successive years, and have at last succeeded."

"My personal affairs are not as highly esteemed as men commonly value their own interests—vain, empty affairs like those great clouds seen in the wake of the sunset which are meaningless and soon pass away."

"This I recognize as unique and outstanding among my faults—the habit...of preferring to say above all things what I know to be displeasing to the ears of my hearers. ...I keep it up wilfully, in no way ignorant of how many enemies it makes for me. ...Yet I avoid this practice in the presence of my benefactors and of my superiors. It is enough not to fawn upon these, or at least not to flatter them."

"What if one should address a word to the kings of the earth and say, "Not one of you but eats lice, flies, bugs, worms, fleas—nay the very filth of your servants! With what an attitude would they listen to such statements, though they be truths? What is this complacency then but an ignoring of conditions, a pretense of not being aware of what we know exists, or a will to set aside a fact by force? And so it is with everything else foul, vain, confused and untrue in our lives."

"I have not lost my faith; and this I must attribute more to a miracle than to my own wisdom; more to Divine Providence than to my own virtue. Steadfastly, in fact from my earliest childhood, I have made this my prayer, "Lord God... grant me long life, and wisdom, and health of mind and body.""

"My father, in my earliest childhood, taught me the rudiments of arithmetic, and about that time made me acquainted with the arcana; whence he had come by this learning I know not. This was about my ninth year. Shortly after, he instructed me in the elements of the astronomy of Arabia, meanwhile trying to instill in me some system of theory for memorizing, for I had been poorly endowed with the ability to remember. After I was twelve years old he taught me the first six books of Euclid, but in such a manner that he expended no effort on such parts as I was able to understand by myself. This is the knowledge I was able to acquire and learn without any elementary schooling..."

"Since this art surpasses all human subtelty and the perspecuity of mortal talent and is truly a celestial gift and a very clear test of the capacity of man's minds, whoever applies himself to it will believe that there is nothing that he cannot understand."

"Although a long series of rules might be added and a long discourse given about them, we conclude our detailed consideration with the cubic, others being merely mentioned, even if generally, in passing. For as positio refers to a line, quadratum to the surface, and cubum to a solid body, it would be very foolish for us to go beyond this point. Nature does no permit it."

"Cardano reasoned that the end of man is to know God and to mediate between the divine and the mortal. The is immortal and when permeated with is inseparable from God. True wisdom is gained from and by mathematics, as God has subjected the world to mathematical law."

"You troubled mindes with tormentes loste that sighes and sobs consumes: (Who breathes and puffes from burning breast, both smothring smoke and fumes.) Come reade this booke that freelye bringes, a boxe of balme full swete, An oyle to noynt the brused partes, of everye heavye spirete. ...The lame whose lack of legges is death, unto a loftye mynde, Wyll kiss his crotche and creepe on knees,Cardanus workes to fynde."

"It appears... from this short chapter [Ars Magna, lib x. ch. 1], that he had discovered most of the principal properties of the roots of equations, and could point out the number and nature of the roots, partly from the signs of the terms, and partly from the magnitude and relations of the co-efficients."

"Every medieval and Renaissance court had a royal astrologer who advised the duke or prince he served. ...Men such as Roger Bacon, who even in the thirteenth century was a clear and outspoken champion of the experimental method in science, and Jerome Cardan, one of the foremost mathematicians and physicians of the sixteenth century, subscribed to astrology."

"Jerome Cardan is... the founder of the higher algebra; for, whatever he may have borrowed from others, we derive the science from his Ars Magna, published in 1545. It contains many valuable discoveries; but that which has been most celebrated is the rule for the solution of cubic equations, generally known by Cardan's name, though he had obtained it from a man of equal genius in algebraic science, Nicolas Tartaglia. The original inventor appears to have been Scipio Ferreo, who, about 1505, by some unknown process, discovered the solution of a single case; that of x3 + px = q. Ferreo imparted the secret to one Fiore, or Floridus, who challenged Tartaglia to a public trial of skill, not unusual in that age. Before he heard of this, Tartaglia, as he assures us himself, had found out the solution of two other forms of cubic equation; x3 + px2 = q, and x3 - px2 = q. When the day of trial arrived, Tartaglia was able, not only to solve the problems offered by Fiore, but to baffle him entirely by others which resulted in the forms of equation, the solution of which had been discovered by himself. This was in 1535; and, four years afterwards, Cardan obtained the secret from Tartaglia under an oath of secrecy. In his Ars Magna, he did not hesitate to violate this engagement; and, though he gave Tartaglia the credit of the discovery, revealed the process to the world."

"Anticipations of Cardan are more truly wonderful when we consider that the symbolical language of algebra, that powerful instrument not only expediting the processes of thought, but in suggesting general truths to the mind, was nearly unknown in his age. Diophantus, Fra Luca, and Cardan make use occasionally of letters to express indefinite quantities besides the res or cosa, sometimes written shortly, for the assumed unknown number of an equation. But letters were not yet substituted for known quantities. Michael Stifel, in his Arithmetics Integra, Nuremberg, 1544, is said to have first used the signs + and -, and numeral exponents of powers. It is very singular that discoveries of the greatest convenience, and apparently, not above the ingenuity of a village schoolmaster, should have been overlooked by men of extraordinary acuteness like Tartaglia, Cardan, and Ferrari; and hardly less so, that by dint of this acuteness they dispensed with the aid of these contrivances, in which we suppose that so much of the utility of algebraic expression consists."

"His career is an account of the most extraordinary and inconsistent acts. A gambler, if not a murderer, he was an ardent student of science, solving problems which had long baffled all investigation; at one time in his life he was devoted to intrigues which were a scandal even in the sixteenth century, at another he did nothing but rave on astrology, and yet at another he declared that philosophy was the only subject worthy of a man's attention. His was the genius that was closely allied to madness."

"After spending a year or so in France, Scotland, and England, he returned to Milan as professor of science, and shortly afterward was elected to a chair at Pavia. Here he divided his time between debauchery, astrology, and mechanics. His two sons were as wicked and passionate as himself: the elder was in 1560 executed for poisoning his wife, and about the same time Cardan in a fit of rage cut off the ears of the younger who committed some offence; for this scandelous outrage he suffered no punishment, as Pope Gregory XIII granted him protection."

"In 1570 he was imprisoned for heresy on account of his having published the horoscope of Christ, and when released he found himself... generally detested..."

"Cardan was the most distinguished astrologer of his time, and when he settled in Rome he received a pension in order to secure his services as astrologer to the papal court. This proved fatal to him for, having foretold that he should die on a particular date, he felt obliged to commit suicide in order to keep up his reputation—so at least the story runs."

"The Ars Magna is a great advance on any algebra previously published. Hitherto algebraists had confined their attention to those roots of equations which were positive. Cardan discussed negative and even complex roots, and proved that the latter would always occur in pairs, though he declined to commit himself to any explanation as to the meaning of these "sophistic" quantities which he said were ingenious though useless."

"Most of his analysis of cubic equations seems to have been original; he shewed that if the three roots were real, Tartaglia's solution gave them in a form which involved imaginary quantities. Except for the somewhat similar researches of Bombelli a few years later, the theory of imaginary quantities received little further attention from mathematicians until John Bernoulli and Euler took up the matter after the lapse of nearly two centuries. Gauss first put the subject on a systematic and scientific basis, introduced the notation of complex variables, and used the symbol i, which had been introduced by Euler in 1777, to denote the square root of (-1): the modern theory is chiefly based on his researches."

"The first epoch-making algebra to appear in print was the Ars Magna of Cardan (1545). This was devoted primarily to the solution of algebraic equations. It contained the solution of the cubic and biquadratic equations, made use of complex numbers, and in general may be said to have been the first step toward modern algebra."

"[Zuanne de Tonini] da Coi... impuned Tartaglia to publish his method, but the latter declined to do so. In 1539 Cardan wrote to Tartaglia, and a meeting was arranged at which, Tartaglia says, having pledged Cardan to secrecy, he revealed the method in cryptic verse and later with a full explanation. Cardan admits that he received the solution from Tartaglia, but... without any explanation. At any rate, the two cubics x^3 + ax^2 = c and x^3 + bx = c could now be solved. The reduction of the general cubic x^3 + ax^2 + bx = c to the second of these forms does not seem to have been considered by Tartaglia at the time of the controversy. When Cardan published his Ars Magna however, he transformed the types x^3 = ax^2 + c and x^3 + ax^2 = c by substituting x = y + \frac{1}{3}a and x = y - \frac{1}{3}a respectively, and transformed the type x^3 + c = ax^2 by the substitution x = \sqrt[3]{c^2/y}, thus freeing the equations of the term x^2. This completed the general solution, and he applied the method to the complete cubic in his later problems."

"Cardan's originality in the matter seems to have been shown chiefly in four respects. First, he reduced the general equation to the type x^3 + bx = c; second, in a letter written August 4, 1539, he discussed the question of the irreducible case; third, he had the idea of the number of roots to be expected in the cubic; and, fourth, he made a beginning in the theory of symmetric functions. ...With respect to the irreducible case... we have the cube root of a complex number, thus reaching an expression that is irreducible even though all three values of x turn out to be real. With respect to the number of roots to be expected in the cubic... before this time only two roots were ever found, negative roots being rejected. As to the question of symmetric functions, he stated that the sum of the roots is minus the coefficient of x2"

"He states that the root of x^3 + 6x = 20 is{{center|1=x = \sqrt[3]{\sqrt{108} + 10} - \sqrt[3]{\sqrt{108} - 10}.}}"

"He... gave thirteen forms of the cubic which have positive roots, these having already been given by Omar Kayyam."

"The problem of the biquadratic equation was laid prominently before Italian mathematicians by Zuanne de Tonini da Coi, who in 1540 proposed the problem, "Divide 10 parts into three parts such that they shall be continued in proportion and that the product of the first two shall be 6." He gave this to Cardan with the statement that it could not be solved, but Cardan denied the assertion, although himself unable to solve it. He gave it to Ferrari, his pupil, and the latter, although then a mere youth, succeeded where the master had failed. ...This method soon became known to algebraists through Cardan's Ars Magna, and in 1567 we find it used by Nicolas Petri [of Deventer]."

"The law which asserts that the equation X = 0, complete or incomplete, can have no more real positive roots than it has changes of sign, and no more real negative roots than it has permanences of sign, was apparently known to Cardan; but a satisfactory statement is possibly due to Harriot (died 1621) and certainly to Descartes."

"The application of the theory [of probability] to mortality tables in any large way may be said to have started with John Graunt... The first tables of great importance, however, were those of Edmund Halley... however... Cardan seems to have been the first to have been the first to consider the problem in a printed work, although his treatment is very fanciful. He gives a brief table in his proposition "Spatium vitae naturalis per spatium vitae fortuitum declarare," this appearing in the De Proportionibus Libri V..."

"Cardano's entertaining books on science and curiosities were among the best read and most pirated works in the sixteenth century. ...his work on the "Great Art" has been characterized as the first that goes decisively beyond the attainments of classical Greek mathematics."

"Most important for the history of science is the fact that Liber de Ludo Aleae, "The Book of Games of Chance," contains the first study of the principles of probability. ...it would seem much more just to date the beginnings of probability theory from Cardano's treatise rather than the customary reckoning from Pascal's discussions with his friend de Méré and the ensuing correspondence with Fermat... at least a century after Cardano..."

"Cardano was a man of universal interests, and much of his ability must have been inherited from his father, Fazio Cardano... a lawyer... but also deeply steeped in the medical sciences, mathematics, and all kinds of occult lore... he had... a high reputation as a scholar in his native town; even Leonardo da Vinci notes several times that he consulted Messer Fazio on geometric questions... he was appointed as a public lecturer in geometry."

"When Cardano's Consolation or Comforte was translated into English in 1573... one of the readers is known to have been William Shakespeare. ...Hamlet's thoughts on death and slumber are believed to have been inspired by... passages in Comforte..."

"A great number of writers on the history of medicine have indicated important observations and suggestions which made their intitial appearance with Cardano."

"Nulla enim alia re uidemus populum Romanum orbem subegisse terrarum nisi armorum exercitio, disciplina castrorum usuque militiae."

"Scientia enim rei bellicae dimicandi nutrit audaciam: nemo facere metuit quod se bene didicisse confidit."

"Etenim in certamine bellorum exercitata paucitas ad uictoriam promptior est, rudis et indocta multitudo exposita semper ad caedem."

"Caesa enim, quouis impetu ueniat, non frequenter interficit, cum et armis uitalia defendantur et ossibus; at contra puncta duas uncias adacta mortalis est."

"Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum; qui uictoriam cupit, milites inbuat diligenter; qui secundos optat euentus, dimicet arte, non casu."

"An ambuscade, if discovered and promptly surrounded, will return the intended mischief with interest."

"What can a soldier do who charges when out of breath?"

"Amplius iuuat uirtus quam multitudo."

"Paucos uiros fortes natura procreat; bona institutione plures reddit industria."

"Numquam ad certamen publicum produxeris militem, nisi cum eum uideris sperare uictoriam."

"Qui frumentum necessariaque non praeparat, uincitur sine ferro."

"Quid fieri debeat, tractato cum multis, quid uero facturus sis, cum paucissimis ac fidelissimis uel potius ipse tecum."

"Boni duces publico certamine numquam nisi ex occasione aut nimia necessitate confligunt."

"In omnibus proeliis expeditionis condicio talis est, ut quod tibi prodest aduersarium noceat, quod illum adiuuat tibi semper officiat."

"Nulla consilia meliora sunt nisi illa, quae ignorauerit aduersarius, antequam facias."

"aduersarium amplius frangunt transfugae quam perempti."

"Habere non potest Deum patrem qui ecclesiam non habet matrem."

"Salus extra ecclesiam non est."

"For the helmsman is recognized in the tempest; in the warfare the soldier is proved."

"It is a persistent evil to persecute a man who belongs to the grace of God. It is a calamity without remedy to hate the happy."

"Since we have Christ as our Advocate with the Father for our sins, when we pray on account of our faults, we use the very words of our Advocate."

"Men imitate the gods whom they adore, and to such miserable beings their crimes become their religion."

"Hence turn your looks to the abominations, not less to be deplored, of another kind of spectacle. In the theatres also you will behold what may well cause you grief and shame. It is the tragic buskin which relates in verse the crimes of ancient days. The old horrors of parricide and incest are unfolded in action calculated to express the image of the truth, so that, as the ages pass by, any crime that was formerly committed may not be forgotten. Each generation is reminded by what it hears, that whatever has once been done may be done again. Crimes never die out by the lapse of ages; wickedness is never abolished by process of time; impiety is never buried in oblivion. Things which have now ceased to be actual deeds of vice become examples."

"Think not that you are thus maintaining the Gospel of Christ when you separate yourselves from the flock of Christ."

"Humi iacent fessa laboribus viscera, sed poena non est cum Christo iacere. Squalent sine balneis membra situ et sorde deformia, sed spiritaliter intus abluitur quod foris carnaliter sordidatur."

"Per varios usus artem experientia fecit, Exemplo monstrante viam."

"Semper enim ex aliis alias proseminat usus."

"Certis legibus omnia parent."

"Quis credat tantas operum sine numine moles Ex minimis, caecoque creatum foedere mundum?"

"Quot post excidium Troiae sunt eruta regna? Quot capti populi? quoties Fortuna per orbem Servitium imperiumque tulit, varieque revertit?"

"Omnia mortali mutantur lege creata, Nec se cognoscunt terræ vertentibus annis, Et mutant variam faciem per sæcula gentes, At manet incolumis mundus suaque omnia servat."

"Rationi nulla resistunt. Claustra nec immensæ moles, ceduntque recessus: Omnia succumbunt, ipsum est penetrabile cœlum."

"Volat hora per orbem."

"Quis cœlum possit nisi cœli munere nosse? Et reperire deum nisi qui pars ipse deorum est?"

"Facile est ventis dare vela secundis, Fecundumque solum varias agitare per artes, Auroque atque ebori decus addere, cum rudis ipsa Materies niteat."

"Æquo stat fœdere tempus."

"Victuros agimus semper, nec vivimus unquam."

"Nascentes morimur, finisque ab origine pendet."

"Labor est etiam ipse voluptas."

"Impendendus homo est, deus esse ut possit in ipso."

"Exemplumque dei quisque est in imagine parva."

"Materiae ne quaere modum; sed perspice vires Quas ratio, non pondus habet; ratio omnia vincit."

"Our third conflict is against covetousness which we can describe as the love of money; a foreign warfare, and one outside of our nature. ... For the rest of the incitements to sin planted in human nature seem to have their commencement as it were congenital with us, and somehow being deeply rooted in our flesh, and almost cœval with our birth, anticipate our powers of discerning good and evil, and although in very early days they attack a man, yet they are overcome with a long struggle.But this disease coming upon us at a later period, and approaching the soul from without, as it can be the more easily guarded against and resisted, so, if it is disregarded and once allowed to gain an entrance into the heart, is the more dangerous to every one, and with the greater difficulty expelled. For it becomes "a root of all evils" [1 Timothy 6:10] and gives rise to a multiplicity of incitements to sin."

"Some faults grow up without any natural occasion giving birth to them, but simply from the free choice of a corrupt and evil will, as envy and this very sin of covetousness; which are caught (so to speak) from without, having no origination in us from natural instincts. But these, in proportion as they are easily guarded against and readily avoided, just so do they make wretched the mind that they have got hold of and seized, and hardly do they suffer it to get at the remedies which would cure it."

"Having laid the foundations badly, they [covetous souls] are unworthy to raise an edifice of virtue and reach the summit of perfection."

"With the increase of wealth the mania of covetousness increases."

"Gold and the love of gain become to him his god, as the belly does to others. Wherefore the blessed Apostle, looking out on the deadly poison of this pest, not only says that it is a root of all kinds of evil, but also calls it the worship of idols, saying "And covetousness (which in Greek is called φιλαργυρία) which is the worship of idols." [Colossians 3:5] You see then to what a downfall this madness step by step leads, so that by the voice of the Apostle it is actually declared to be the worship of idols and false gods, because passing over the image and likeness of God (which one who serves God with devotion ought to preserve undefiled in himself), it chooses to love and care for images stamped on gold instead of God."

"It is an impossibility for him who, overcome in the matter of a small possession, has once admitted into his heart a root of evil desire, not to be inflamed presently with the heat of a still greater desire."

"We must not only guard against the possession of money, but also must expel from our souls the desire for it. For we should not so much avoid the results of covetousness, as cut off by the roots all disposition towards it. For it will do no good not to possess money, if there exists in us the desire for getting it."

"It is possible that those who are in no way pressed down with the weight of money may be condemned with the covetous in disposition and intent. For it was the opportunity of possessing which was wanting in their case, and not the will for it."

"How will he see to cast out the mote from his brother's eye, who has the beam of anger in his own eye?"

"Wrath that is nursed in the heart, although it may not injure men who stand by, yet excludes the splendour of the radiance of the Holy Ghost, equally with wrath that is openly manifested."

"Sometimes when we have been overcome by pride or impatience, and we want to improve our rough and bearish manners, we complain that we require solitude, as if we should find the virtue of patience there where nobody provokes us: and we apologize for our carelessness, and say that the reason of our disturbance does not spring from our own impatience, but from the fault of our brethren. And while we lay the blame of our fault on others, we shall never be able to reach the goal of patience and perfection.The chief part then of our improvement and peace of mind must not be made to depend on another's will, which cannot possibly be subject to our authority, but it lies rather in our own control. And so the fact that we are not angry ought not to result from another's perfection, but from our own virtue, which is acquired, not by somebody else's patience, but by our own long-suffering."

"The holy person ... when, raised up from the earth, he contemplates all present and earthly realities as mere smoke and an empty shadow and disdains them as soon to disappear; when, with ecstatic mind, he not only ardently desires future realities but even sees them with clarity; when he is effectively fed by spiritual theoria; when he sees unlocked to himself the heavenly sacraments in all their brightness; when he sends prayers purely and swiftly to God; and when, inflamed with spiritual ardor, he passes over to invisible and eternal realities with such utter eagerness of soul that he cannot bring himself to believe that he is in the flesh."

"Yet sometimes the mind which advances to that true disposition of purity and has already begun to be rooted in it, conceiving all of these at one and the same time and rushing through them all like a kind of ungraspable and devouring flame, pours out to God wordless prayers of the purest vigor. These the Spirit itself makes to God as it intervenes with unutterable groans, unbeknownst to us, conceiving at that moment and pouring forth in wordless prayer such great things that they not only—I would say— cannot pass through the mouth but are unable even to be remembered by the mind later on."

"This prayer, then, although it seems to contain the utter fullness of perfection inasmuch as it was instituted and established on the authority of the Lord himself, nonetheless raises his familiars to that condition which we characterized previously as more sublime. It leads them by a higher stage to that fiery and, indeed, more properly speaking, wordless prayer which is known and experienced by very few. This transcends all human understanding and is distinguished not, I would say, by a sound of the voice or a movement of the tongue or a pronunciation of words. Rather, the mind is aware of it when it is illuminated by an infusion of heavenly light from it, and not by narrow human words, and once the understanding has been suspended it gushes forth as from a most abundant fountain and speaks ineffably to God, producing more in that very brief moment than the self-conscious mind is able to articulate easily or to reflect upon. Our Lord himself represented this condition in similar fashion in the form of those prayers that he is described as having poured out alone on the mountain and silently, and when he prayed in his agony he even shed drops of blood as an inimitable example of his intense purpose."

"But they alone see his Godhead with purest eyes who, mounting from humble and earthly tasks and thoughts, go off with him to the lofty mountain of the desert which, free from the uproar of every earthly thought and disturbance, removed from every taint of vice, and exalted with the purest faith and with soaring virtue, reveals the glory of his face and the image of his brightness to those who deserve to look upon him with the clean gaze of the soul."

"For the rest, Jesus is also seen by those who dwell in cities and towns and villages—that is, by those who have an active way of life and its obligations—but not with that brightness with which he appears to those who are able to climb with him the aforesaid mount of the virtues—namely, to Peter, James, and John. For it was in the desert that he appeared to Moses and spoke to Elijah."

"This will be the case when every love, every desire, every effort, every undertaking, every thought of ours, everything that we live, that we speak, that we breathe, will be God, and when that unity which the Father now has with the Son and which the Son has with the Father will be carried over into our understanding and our mind, so that, just as he loves us with a sincere and pure and indissoluble love, we too may be joined to him with a perpetual and inseparable love and so united with him that whatever we breathe, whatever we understand, whatever we speak, may be God. In him we shall attain, I say, to that end of which we spoke before, which the Lord longed to be fulfilled in us when he prayed: ‘That all may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they themselves may also be made perfect in unity.’ (John 17:22-23)"

"Not without reason has this verse [Psalms 70:1] been selected from out of the whole body of Scripture. ... ‘O God, incline unto my aid.’ ... This verse should be poured out in unceasing prayer so that we may be delivered in adversity and preserved and not puffed up in prosperity. You should, I say, meditate constantly on this verse in your heart. You should not stop repeating it when you are doing any kind of work or performing some service or are on a journey. Meditate on it while sleeping and eating and attending to the least needs of nature. This heart’s reflection, having become a saving formula for you, will not only preserve you unharmed from every attack of the demons but will also purge you of every vice and earthly taint, lead you to the theoria of invisible and heavenly realities, and raise you to that ineffably ardent prayer which is experienced by very few. Let sleep overtake you as you meditate upon this verse until you are formed by having used it ceaselessly and are in the habit of repeating it even while asleep."

"Thus we shall penetrate its meaning not through the written text but with experience leading the way. So it is that our mind will arrive at that incorruptible prayer to which, in the previous discussion, as far as the Lord deigned to grant it, the conference was ordered and directed. This is not only not laid hold of by the sight of some image, but it cannot even be grasped by any word or phrase. Rather, once the mind’s attentiveness has been set ablaze, it is called forth in an unspeakable ecstasy of heart and with an insatiable gladness of spirit, and the mind, having transcended all feelings and visible matter, pours it out to God with unutterable groans and sighs."

"For there is no one who does not know from the vastness of creation itself that the works of God are marvelous. But what he accomplishes in his holy ones by his daily activity and abundantly pours into them by his particular munificence—this no one knows but the soul which enjoys it and which, in the recesses of its conscience, is so uniquely the judge of his benefits that it cannot only not speak of them but cannot even seize them in understanding or thought when, leaving behind its fiery ardor, it falls back to gazing upon material and earthly realities."

"Let me pass over those secret and hidden dispensations of God which each holy person’s mind sees operative in a special way within itself at given moments; over that heavenly inpouring of spiritual gladness by which the downcast mind is uplifted by an inspired joy; over those fiery ecstasies of heart and the joyful consolations at once unspeakable and unheard of, by which those who occasionally fall into a listless torpor are raised as out of the deepest sleep to the most fervent prayer."

"It is inevitable that the mind which does not have a place to turn to or any stable base will undergo change from hour to hour and from minute to minute due to the variety of its distractions, and by the things that come to it from outside it will be continually transformed into whatever occurs to it at any given moment."

"Wherefore a monk's whole attention should thus be fixed on one point, and the rise and circle of all his thoughts be vigorously restricted to it; viz., to the recollection of God, as when a man, who is anxious to raise on high a vault of a round arch, must constantly draw a line round from its exact centre, and in accordance with the sure standard it gives discover by the laws of building all the evenness and roundness required...."

"Suffering is the ancient law of love; there is no quest without pain; there is no lover who is not also a martyr."

"An unloving heart can no more understand a love-filled speaker than a German an Italian."

"Be steadfast and never rest content until you have obtained the now of eternity as your present possession in this life, so far as this is possible to human infirmity."

"In the darkness beyond distinct manner of existing, all multiplicity disappears and the spirit loses what is its own. It disappears with regard to its own activity. This is the highest goal and the 'where' beyond boundaries. In this the spirituality of all spirits ends. Here to lose oneself forever is eternal happiness. thumb|right|To lose oneself forever is eternal happiness"

"Here in this region beyond thought the human spirit actively soars. thumb|right|Here in this region beyond thought the human spirit actively soars"

"In this wild mountain region of the 'where' beyond God there is an abyss full of play and feeling for all pure spirits."

"It is hidden for everything that is not God, except for those with whom he wants to share Himself."

"In a detached person nothing merely temporal is born in possessiveness. His eyes are opened. He becomes fully aware and, receiving his blessed existence and life, is one with Him; for all things are here one in the thumb|right|He becomes fully aware and, receiving his blessed existence and life, is one with Him; for all things are here one in the One One."

"No one can explain this to another just thumb|right|In this wild mountain region of the 'where' beyond God there is an abyss full of play and feeling for all pure spirits with words. thumb|right|No one can explain this to another just with words. One knows it by experiencing it One knows it by experiencing it."

"In order to attain perfect union, we must divest ourselves of God...The common belief about God, that He is a great Taskmaster, whose function is to reward or punish, is cast out by perfect love; and in this sense the spiritual man does divest himself of God as conceived of by most people."

"Eternity is life that is beyond time but includes within itself all time but without a before or after. And whoever is taken into the Eternal Nothing possesses all in all and has no 'before or after'. Indeed a person taken within today would not have been there for a shorter period from the point of view of eternity than someone who had been taken thumb|right|Whoever is taken into the Eternal Nothing possesses all in all and has no 'before or after' within a thousand years ago."

"Now these people who are taken within, thumb|right|These people who are taken within, because of their boundless immanent oneness with God, see themselves as always and eternally existing because of their boundless immanent oneness with God, see themselves as always and eternally existing"

"You and I do not meet on one branch or in one place. You make your way along one path and I along another. Your questions arise from human thinking, and I respond from a knowledge that is far beyond all human comprehension. thumb|right|You must give up human understanding if you want to reach the goal, because the truth is known by not knowing You must give up human understanding if you want to reach the goal, because the truth is known by not knowing"

"After this the disciple turned again in all seriousness to eternal Truth and asked for the power to discern by outward appearance a person who was truly detached. He asked thus. Eternal Truth, how do such people act in relation to various things? Answer: They withdraw from themselves, and all things withdraw along with this. Question: How do they conduct themselves with respect to time? Answer: They exist in an ever-present now, thumb|right|They exist in an ever-present now, free of selfish intentions free of selfish intentions, and they seek to act perfectly in the smallest thing as in the greatest."

"Question: Paul says that no law is made for the just. Answer: Just persons, by becoming so, conduct themselves more submissively than other people because they understand from within, in the source, what is proper outwardly for everyone, and they view all things accordingly. The reason that they are unfettered is that they do (freely) out of an attitude of detachment what ordinary people do under compulsion."

"Question: Is not the person who has been transported to interior detachment freed from external exercises? Answer: One sees few people reach the condition you describe without their strength being wasted. The efforts of those who really achieve it affect them to the marrow. And so, when they realise what is to be done and left undone, they continue to practise the usual exercises, performing them more or less frequently as their strength and the occasion permit. Question: Where do the pangs of conscience and other anxieties of seemingly good people come from, as well as the unrestrained latitude (of conscience) in other people? Answer: Both types are focusing their attention on their own image but in different ways; the one group spiritually, the other bodily."

"Question: Does a detached person remain unoccupied all the time, or what does he or she do? Answer: The activity of really detached people lies in their becoming detached, and their achievement is to remain unoccupied because they remain calm in action and unconcerned about their achievements. Question: What is their conduct toward their fellow human beings? Answer: They enjoy the companionship of people, but without being compromised by them. They love them without attachment, and they show them sympathy without anxious concern - all in true freedom. Question: Is such a person required to go to confession? Answer: The confession that is motivated by love is nobler than one motivated by necessity. Question: What is such people’s prayer like? Are they supposed to pray, too? Answer: Their prayer is effective because they forestall the influence of the senses. God is spirit and knows whether this person has put an obstacle in the way or whether he or she has acted from selfish impulses. And then a light is enkindled in their highest power, which makes clear that God is the being, life and activity within them and that they are merely instruments. Question: What are such a person's eating, drinking and sleeping like? Answer: Externally, and in keeping with their sensuous nature, the outward person eats. Internally, however, they are as if not eating; otherwise, thumb|right|One does not arrive at the goal by asking questions. It is rather through detachment that one comes to this hidden truth they would be enjoying food and rest like an animal. This is also the case in other things pertaining to human existence."

"Question: What is their external behaviour like? Answer: They have few mannerisms, and they do not talk a lot; their words are simple and direct. They live modestly so that things pass through them without their involvement. They are composed in their use of the senses. Question: Are all detached people like this? Answer: More so or less so, depending on accidental circumstances. Essentially, however, they are the same. Question: Do such people come to a full knowledge of the truth, or do they remain in the realm of opinion and imagining? Answer: Since they remain basically human, they continue to have opinions and imaginings. But because they have withdrawn from themselves into that which is, they have a knowledge of all truth; for this is truth itself and they ignore themselves. But let this be enough for you. thumb|right|It is important to realize that everyone has five kinds of self One does not arrive at the goal by asking questions. It is rather through detachment that one comes to this hidden truth. Amen"

"Disciple: Lord, what is true detachment? Truth: Take note with careful discrimination of these two words: oneself and leave. If you know how to weigh these two words properly, testing their meaning thoroughly to their core and viewing them with true discernment, then you can quickly grasp the truth. Take, first of all, the first word -- oneself or myself -- and see what it is. It is important to realize that everyone has five kinds of self. The first self we have in common with a stone, and this is being. The second we share with plants, and this is growing. The third self we share with animals, and this is sensation. The fourth we share with all other human beings: we possess a common human nature in which all are one. The fifth - which belongs to a person exclusively as his or her own - is one's individual human self… Now what is it that leads people astray and robs them of happiness? It is exclusively this last self. Because of it a person turns outward, away from God and toward this self, when he or she should be returning inward. Thus they fashion their own selves according to what is accidental. In their blindness they appropriate to themselves what is God's. This is the direction they take, and they eventually sink into sinfulness."

"Disciple: The truth be praised! Dear Lord, tell me, does anything (of this self) still remain in the happy, detached person? Truth: Without a doubt it happens that, when the good and loyal servant is led into the joy of his Lord, he becomes drunk from the limitless overabundance of God's house. What happens to a drunken man happens to him, though it cannot really be described, that he so forgets his self that he is not at all his self and consequently has got rid of his self completely and lost himself entirely in God, becoming one spirit in all ways with him, just as a small drop of water does which has been dropped into a large amount of wine. Just as the drop of water loses itself, drawing the taste and colour of the wine to and into itself, so it happens that those who are in full possession of blessedness lose all human desires in an inexpressible manner, and they ebb away from themselves and are immersed completely in the divine will. Otherwise, if something of the individual were to remain of which he or she were not completely emptied, scripture could not be true in stating that God shall thumb|right|When the good and loyal servant is led into the joy of his Lord, he becomes drunk from the limitless overabundance of God's house. What happens to a drunken man happens to him, though it cannot really be described, that he so forgets his self that he is not at all his self become all things in all things. Certainly one's being remains, but in a different form, in a different resplendence, and in a different power. This is all the result of total detachment from self."

"One thing you must know: Just as there is no comparison between actually hearing the sound of harp-strings sweetly plucked and listening to someone talking about it, so too there is no comparison between words which are received in pure grace, issuing from a living heart, spoken by living lips, and those self-same words committed to dry parchment — especially words in German. For these somehow grow chill, losing their vitality like roses cut. For the enchanting melody which, more than anything else, moves human hearts, then fades away, so that the words are received now into the dryness of dry hearts. No harp-strings were ever so sweet but, when stretched across dry timber, they fall silent. An unloving heart can no more understand a love-filled speaker than a German an Italian. Therefore, an eager enquirer should hasten to the out-flowing streams of these sweet teachings so that she may see and observe them at their source in all its living and wondrous beauty – that is, the in-flowing of present grace which is able to restore dead hearts to life."

"Henry Suso is a bundle of contradictions, and a person, moreover, who has gathered legends about him like a snowball rolling downhill. He was a poet, which is not always a key to happiness in this world; a mystic of the highest order; a hard working Dominican; and a man with a positive genius for getting into embarrassing situations... It will require many years of exhaustive research to sort out the diverse elements in his personality, if, indeed, it can ever be accomplished. Poets are not easy to analyze, and Henry, before all else, was a poet...Henry was born in Switzerland, in 1290, the son of a warlike family of counts and crusaders. His father said more than once that he wished Henry had been a girl and some of his spirited daughters had been boys; for Henry was not a type to carry a sword. Henry was a gentle, dreamy lad, who liked to accompany his mother on pilgrimages and read about heroic deeds. He had taken his mother's name of Suso, perhaps out of sheer inability to live up to the warlike title of the Count von Berg...The best known work of Henry Suso is his Little Book of Eternal Wisdom, which is a classic of spiritual writing. He also composed many other short treatises on the mystical union of the soul with God, all written with the same poetic language and the same intensity of feeling. The man who had carved "the lovely name of Jesus" into the flesh over his heart was just as intense in his spiritual life."

"Bl. Henry Suso (c. 1300 - 1366) studied theology under Meister Eckhart in Cologne. But Eckhart was more than a teacher to him: there is a touching account in Suso's autobiography of how he went to Eckhart when his hypersensitive conscience was tormenting him, and how Eckhart gave him complete peace. He entered the Dominican Order in his native Constance. Some years later he had a profound religious experience which he described in great detail. It was the beginning of a great love story, told with impressive literary skill in the tender language of courtly love...The language of chivalry, parodied in a later century in Don Quixote, was still viable in Suso's century. 'Your young unruly heart,' he said to himself, 'can scarcely endure to be without a special object of love.' So he often 'meditated about her, thinking of her lovingly, and liking her full well with all his heart and soul.' The mediaeval knight delighted to suffer for the lady he worshipped. Two of his books are written as dialogue, a favourite literary form in the 14th century."

"Among all the medieval mystics, the Rhineland mystics are perhaps the ones best known today. They are widely accessible and cited more frequently than any others. Their message has a directness and freshness of expression that communicates itself across the centuries...Initially one might expect that all mystics from the Rhine region would be counted as Rhineland mystics...But the term “Rhineland mystics” is customarily used in a more restricted sense. It refers only to the mystics of the fourteenth century who lived in Germany and the Low Countries. It applies particularly to a group of several men—Meister Eckhart, Henry Suso, Johannes Tauler and Jan van Ruusbroec...The most daring and original of the Rhenish mystics was Meister Eckhart, whose disciples were Johannes Tauler and Henry Suso. These three Germans all belonged to the Dominican order. Suso is seen as the most intimate and personal mystic, Tauler was known as an inspiring preacher, whereas the Flemish mystic Jan van Ruusbroec limited the fusion of human soul and God by stating that at the summit of the ascent the soul still preserves its identity. These men, deeply involved in the theological debates of their own age, describe the deepest levels of inward experience where God is known in the inner recesses of the human soul, a most intimate presence that is also a transcendence. Their message addresses us so directly because it relates to a search for what is most essential to religion, its deepest, most inward dimension, and it emphasizes a real indwelling of ourselves in God and of God in us. The mysticism of the Rhineland is known in German as Wesensmystik, a mysticism of being or essence."

"Another Dominican mystic of this period is the Blessed Henry Suso, or Heinrich Seuse, to give him his original German name. The son of a noble Swabian family, he was born near Lake Constance, on the border between Switzerland and Germany. His father was very worldly, his mother deeply devout. As he tells us in his own Life, written in later years, one of his earliest memorable experiences occurred on the death of his mother when he was still young. She appeared in a vision and told him to love God, then kissed and blessed him, and disappeared. Suso’s sense of loneliness and abandonment, his excessive asceticism in later life, harshly maltreating his body in imitation of Christ’s suffering, and his expressions of tender love addressed to God may all have been linked to “starved human affections seeking an outlet,” as Evelyn Underhill has suggested. Suso entered the Dominican order at the age of thirteen, but found monastic life rather difficult until he experienced a conversion and spiritual awakening. He subsequently studied under Eckhart in Cologne and became a devoted follower and great admirer of his beloved teacher. By 1326 Suso was back in Constance, where he wrote his famous Büchlein der Wahrheit, or Little Book of Truth, which is full of mystical reflection...Suso experienced intense mystical states and visions that made him see ultimate reality as eternal, uncreated truth in which all things have their source and being. He goes even beyond Eckhart in his understanding of divine and human oneness—a state in which “something and nothing are the same.”...Suso preached widely in the Upper Rhineland and Switzerland, enjoying great popularity wherever he went...The savage asceticism and austerities that he practiced over many years are vividly described in his Life, where he speaks of himself in the third person...But after some twenty years of severe ascetic practices he abandoned them as nothing more than a beginning on the way to the highest knowledge of God, whose overwhelming beauty he praised with great tenderness: “Ah, gentle God, if Thou art so lovely in Thy creatures, how exceedingly beautiful and ravishing Thou must be in Thyself!… Praise and honor be to the unfathomable immensity that is in Thee!” Suso must have left a deep impression on his contemporaries, for the veneration of the “Blessed Henry Suso” began soon after his death, although officially the Church did not beatify him until 1831."

"If the physician clearly perceives what is to be cured in diseases, that is to say, in every individual case of disease (knowledge of disease, indication), if he clearly perceives what is curative in medicines, that is to say, in each individual medicine (knowledge of medical powers), and if he knows how to adapt, according to clearly defined principles, what is curative in medicines to what he has discovered to be undoubtedly morbid in the patient, so that the recovery must ensue - to adapt it, as well in respect to the suitability of the medicine most appropriate according to its mode of action to the case before him (choice of the remedy, the medicine indicated), as also in respect to the exact mode of preparation and quantity of it required (proper dose), and the proper period for repeating the dose; - if, finally, he knows the obstacles to recovery in each case and is aware how to remove them, so that the restoration may be permanent, then he understands how to treat judiciously and rationally, and he is a true practitioner of the healing art ."

"The lukewarm baths at 25 to 27° serve to arouse the slumbering sensibility of fibre in the apparent dead (frozen, drowned, suffocated) which benumbed the sensation of the nerves. Though only palliative, still they often prove themselves sufficiently active, especially when given in conjunction with coffee and rubbing with the hands. They may give homœopathic aid in cases where the irritability is very unevenly distributed and accumulated too unevenly in some organs as is the case in certain hysteric spasms and infantile convulsions. In the same way, cold baths 10 to 6° in persons cured medically of chronic diseases and with deficiency of vital heat, act as an homœopathic aid. By instantaneous and later with repeated immersions they act as a palliative restorative of the tone of the exhausted fibre. For this purpose, such baths are to be used for more than momentary duration, rather for minutes and of gradually lowered temperature, they are a palliative, which, since it acts only physically has no connection with the disadvantage of a reverse action to be feared afterwards, as takes place with dynamic medicinal palliatives."

"O summam Dei patris liberalitatem, summam et admirandam hominis foelicitatem! Cui datum id habere quod optat, id esse quod velit. Bruta simul atque nascuntur id secum afferunt (ut ait Lucilius) e bulga matris quod possessura sunt. Supremi spiritus aut ab initio aut paulo mox id fuerunt, quod sunt futuri in perpetuas aeternitates. Nascenti homini omnifaria semina et omnigenae vitae germina indidit Pater. Quae quisque excoluerit illa adolescent, et fructus suos ferent in illo. Si vegetalia planta fiet, si sensualia obrutescet, si rationalia caeleste evadet animal, si intellectualia angelus erit et Dei filius. Et si nulla creaturarum sorte contentus in unitatis centrum suae se receperit, unus cum Deo spiritus factus, in solitaria Patris caligine qui est super omnia constitutus omnibus antestabit."

"Si quem enim videris deditum ventri, humi serpentem hominem, frutex est, non homo, quem vides; si quem in fantasiae quasi Calipsus vanis praestigiis cecucientem et subscalpenti delinitum illecebra sensibus mancipatum, brutum est, non homo, quem vides. Si recta philosophum ratione omnia discernentem, hunc venereris; caeleste est animal, non terrenum. Si purum contemplatorem corporis nescium, in penetralia mentis relegatum, hic non terrenum, non caeleste animal: hic augustius est numen humana carne circumvestitum."

"Invadat animum sacra quaedam ambitio ut mediocribus non contenti anhelemus ad summa, adque illa (quando possumus si volumus) consequenda totis viribus enitamur."

"Quin eo deventum est ut iam (proh dolor!) non existimentur sapientes nisi qui mercennarium faciunt studium sapientiae."

"Dabo hoc mihi, et me ipsum hac ex parte laudare nihil erubescam, me numquam alia de causa philosophatum nisi ut philosopharer, nec ex studiis meis, ex meis lucubrationibus, mercedem ullam aut fructum vel sperasse alium vel quesiisse, quam animi cultum et a me semper plurimum desideratae veritatis cognitionem. Cuius ita cupidus semper et amantissimus fui ut, relicta omni privatarum et publicarum rerum cura, contemplandi ocio totum me tradiderim; a quo nullae invidorum obtrectationes, nulla hostium sapientiae maledicta, vel potuerunt ante hac, vel in posterum me deterrere poterunt."

"Docuit me ipsa philosophia a propria potius conscientia quam ab externis pendere iuditiis, cogitareque semper, non tam ne male audiam, quam ne quid male vel dicam ipse vel agam."

"Nec potest ex omnibus sibi recte propriam selegisse, qui omnes prius familiariter non agnoverit. Adde quod in una quaque familia est aliquid insigne, quod non sit ei commune cum caeteris."

"We note, too, that Hippolytus, who was a Greek-speaking Christian in Rome (c. 225), knows of the Indian Brahmins, and includes their tradition among the sources of heresy: 'There is . . . among the Indians a heresy of those who philosophize among the Brahmins, who live a self-sufficient life, abstaining from (eating) living creatures and all cooked food . . . They say that God is light, not like the light one sees, nor like the sun nor fire, but to them God is discourse, not that which finds expression in articulate sounds, but that of knowledge (gnosis) through which the secret mysteries of nature are perceived by the wise.'"

"Inquiry shall likewise be made about the professions and trades of those who are brought to be admitted to the faith. If a man is a pander, he must desist or be rejected."

"If a man is an actor or pantomimist, he must be rejected."

"A gladiator or a trainer of gladiators, or a huntsman, or anyone connected with these shows ... must desist or be rejected."

"A soldier of the civil authority must be taught not to kill men and to refuse to do so if he is commanded, and to refuse to take an oath; if he is unwilling to comply, he must be rejected."

"If a catechumen or a believer seeks to become a soldier, they must be rejected, for they have despised God."

"Among natural philosophers may be enumerated Thales, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Parmcnides, Leucippus, Democritus, Xenophanes, Ecphantus, Hippo. Among moral philosophers are Socrates, pupil of Archelaus the physicist, [and] Plato the pupil of Socrates. This [speculator] combined three systems of philosophy. Among logicians is Aristotle, pupil of Plato. He systematized the art of dialectics. Among the Stoic [logicians] were Chrysippus [and] Zeno. Epicurus, however, advanced an opinion almost contrary to all philosophers. Pyrrho was an Academic; this [speculator] taught the incomprehen sibility of everything. The Brahmins among the Indians, and the Druids among the Celts, and Hesiod [devoted them selves to philosophic pursuits]."

"Since, however, reason compels us to plunge into the very depth of narrative, we conceive we should not be silent, but, expounding the tenets of the several schools with minute ness, we shall evince reserve in nothing. Now it seems expedient, even at the expense of a more protracted investigation, not to shrink from labour; for we shall leave behind us no trifling auxiliary to human life against the recurrence of error, when all are made to behold, in an obvious light, the clandestine rites of these men, and the secret orgies which, retaining under their management, they deliver to the initiated only. But none will refute these, save the Holy Spirit bequeathed unto the Church, which the Apostles having in the first instance received, have transmitted to those who have rightly believed."

"all the numbers that have been derived from the genus are four; but number is the indefinite genus, from which was constituted, according to them, the perfect number, viz. the decade. For one, two, three, four, become ten, if its proper denomination be preserved essentially for each of the numbers. Pythagoras affirmed this to be a sacred quaternion, source of everlasting nature, having, as it were, roots in itself; and that from this number all the numbers receive their originating principle."

"And Democritus was an acquaintance of Leucippus. Democritus, son of Damasippus, a native of Abdera, conferring with many gymnosophists among the Indians, and with priests in Egypt, and with astrologers and magi in Babylon, [propounded his system]. Now he makes statements similarly with Leucippus concerning elements, viz. plenitude and vacuum, denominating plenitude entity, and vacuum non entity; and this he asserted, since existing things are con tinually moved in the vacuum. And he maintained worlds to be infinite, and varying in bulk; and that in some there is neither sun nor moon, while in others that they are larger than with us, and with others more numerous."

"I think that there has been clearly expounded the mind of arithmeticians, who, by means of numbers and of names, suppose that they interpret life. Now I perceive that these, enjoying leisure, and being trained in calculation, have been desirous that, through the art delivered to them from childhood, they, acquiring celebrity, should be styled prophets."

"Type of those born under Virgo. Those born in Virgo are of the following description: fair appearance, eyes not large, fascinating, dark, compact eyebrows, cheerful, swimmers; they are, however, slight in frame, beautiful in aspect, with hair prettily adjusted, large forehead, prominent nose. The same by nature are docile, moderate, intelligent, sportive, rational, slow to speak, form ing many plans; in regard of a favour, importunate; gladly observing everything; and well-disposed pupils, they master whatever they learn; moderate, scorners, victims of unnatural lusts, companionable, of a noble soul, despisers, careless in practical matters, attending to instruction, more honourable in what concerns others than what relates to themselves; as regards friendship, useful."

"For the [sorcerer] affirms that it is impossible for mortal nature to behold divine things, for that to hold converse [with these mysteries] is sufficient. Making, however, the attendant lie down [upon the couch], head foremost, and placing by each side two of those little tablets, upon which had been inscribed in, forsooth, Hebrew characters, as it were names of demons, he says that [a demon] will deposit the rest in their ears."

"The cauldron, however, full of water, is placed in the middle on the ground; and the reflection of the cyanus falling upon it, presents the appearance of heaven. But the floor also has a certain concealed aperture, on which the cauldron is laid, having been [previously] supplied with a bottom of crystal, while itself is composed of stone. Underneath, however, unnoticed [by the spectators], is a compartment, into which the accomplices assembling, appear invested with the figures of such gods and demons as the magician wishes to exhibit. Now the dupe, beholding these, becomes astonished at the knavery of the magician, and subsequently believes all things that are likely to be stated by him. But [the sorcerer] produces a burning demon, by tracing on the wall whatever figure he wishes, and then covertly smearing it with a drug mixed according to this manner, — viz. of Laconian and Zacynthian asphalt, — while next, as if under the influence in probably before the words, " These contrivances, however, I hesitated to narrate"."

"But the Persians, supposing that they had penetrated more within the confines of the truth, asserted that the Deity is luminous, a light contained in air. The Babylonians, however, affirmed that the Deity is dark, which very opinion also appears the consequence of the other; for day follows night, and night day. Do not the Egyptians, however, who suppose themselves more ancient than all, speak of the power of the Deity? [This power they estimate by] calculating these intervals of the parts [of the zodiac and, as if] by a most divine inspiration, they asserted that the Deity is an indivisible monad, both itself generating itself, and that out of this were formed all things."

"Now earth," say the Greeks, " gave forth a man, [earth] first bearing a goodly gift, wishing to become mother not of plants devoid of sense, nor beasts without reason, but of a gentle and highly favoured creature." … The Chaldeans, however, say that this Adam is the man whom alone earth brought forth. And that he lay inanimate, unmoved, [and] still as a statue ; being an image of him who is above, who is celebrated as the man Adam, having been begotten by many powers, concerning whom individually is an enlarged discussion."

"For Aries is a male zodiacal sign, but Taurus female; and the rest [are denominated] according to the same analogy, some male, but others female."

"And when all things were created as has been described by Moses — both heaven and earth, and the things therein — the twelve angels of the Mother were divided into four principles, and each fourth part of them is called a river — Phison, and Gehon, and Tigris, and Euphrates, as, he says, Moses states. These twelve angels being mutually connected, go about into four parts, and manage the world, holding from Edem a sort of viceregal authority over the world. But they do not always continue in the same places, but move around as if in a circular dance, changing place after place, and at set times and intervals retiring to the localities subject to themselves. And when Phison holds sway over places, famine, distress, and affliction prevail in that part of the earth, for the battalion of these angels is niggardly."

"Simon then, after inventing these [tenets], not only by evil devices interpreted the writings of Moses in whatever way he wished, but even the [works] of the poets. For also he fastens an allegorical meaning on [the story of] the wooden horse and Helen with the torch, and on very many other [accounts], which he transfers to what relates to himself and to Intelligence, and [thus] furnishes a fictitious explanation of them. He said, however, that this [Helen] was the lost sheep. And she, always abiding among women, confounded the powers in the world by reason of her surpassing beauty."

"Their faith alone will not profit them, because they have not done works of righteousness."

"Unless a man has despised worldly things, he shall not receive those which are divine."

"Let no man judge himself to be a Christian, unless he is one who both follows the teaching of Christ and imitates his example."

"Do you consider a man to be a Christian by whose bread no hungry man is ever filled?"

"He is a Christian"

"Whenever I have to speak on the subject of moral instruction and conduct of a holy life, it is my practice first to demonstrate the power and quality of human nature and to show what it is capable of achieving, and then to go on to encourage the mind of my listener to consider the idea of different kinds of virtues, in case it may be of little or no profit to him to be summoned to pursue ends which he has perhaps assumed hitherto to be beyond his reach; for we can never end upon the path of virtue unless we have hope as our guide and compassion."

"It was because God wished to bestow on the rational creature the gift of doing good of his own free will and the capacity to exercise free choice, by implanting in man the possibility of choosing either alternative. ... He could not claim to possess the good of his own volition, unless he was the kind of creature that could also have possessed evil. Our most excellent creator wished us to be able to do either but actually to do only one, that is, good, which he also commanded, giving us the capacity to do evil only so that we might do His will by exercising our own. That being so, this very capacity to do evil is also good – good, I say, because it makes the good part better by making it voluntary and independent, not bound by necessity but free to decide for itself."

"Yet we do not defend the good of nature to such an extent that we claim that it cannot do evil, since we undoubtedly declare also that it is capable of good and evil; we merely try to protect it from an unjust charge, so that we may not seem to be forced to do evil through a fault of our nature, when, in fact, we do neither good nor evil without the exercise of our will and always have the freedom to do one of the two, being always able to do either."

"Nothing impossible has been commanded by the God of justice and majesty. ... Why do we indulge in pointless evasions, advancing the frailty of our own nature as an objection to the one who commands us? No one knows better the true measure of our strength than he who has given it to us nor does anyone understand better how much we are able to do than he who has given us this very capacity of ours to be able; nor has he who is just wished to command anything impossible or he who is good intended to condemn a man for doing what he could not avoid doing."

"Whenever I have to speak on the subject of moral instruction and the conduct of a holy life, it is my practice first to demonstrate the power and quality of human nature."

"We can never enter upon the path to virtue unless we have hope as our guide and companion."

"The best incentive for the mind consists in teaching it that it is possible to do anything which one really wants to do."

"We must now take precautions to prevent you from being embarrassed by something in which the ignorant majority is at fault for lack of proper consideration, and so from supposing with them, that man has not been created truly good simply because he is able to do evil. ... If you reconsider this matter carefully and force your mind to apply a more acute understanding to it, it will be revealed to you that man's status is better and higher for the very reason for which it is thought to be inferior: it is on this choice between two ways, on this freedom to choose either alternative, that the glory of the rational mind is based, it is in this that the whole honor of our nature consists, it is from this that its dignity is derived."

"Love of wealth is insatiable, desire for honour knows no fulfilment; possessions destined to meet with a speedy end are sought endlessly. But divine wisdom, heavenly riches, immortal honours we neglect in our indifference and sloth, and, as for spiritual riches, either we do not touch them at all or, if we get a slight taste of them, we at once suppose that we have had enough. The divine Wisdom invites us to its feasts in quite different terms: Those who eat me, she says, will hunger for more, and those who drink me will thirst for more (Sir.24.21). No one can have enough of such feasts or ever suffers from squeamishness because he has had too much: the more he drinks from that source the greater will be each man's capacity and eagerness for more."

"If you depart from evil but fail to do good, you transgress the law, which is fulfilled not simply by abominating evil deeds but also by performing good works."

"When will a man guilty of any crime or sin accept with a tranquil mind that his wickedness is a product of his own will, not of necessity, and allow what he now strives to attribute to nature to be ascribed to his own free choice? It affords endless comfort to transgressors of the divine law if they are able to believe that their failure to do something is due to inability rather than disinclination, since they understand from their natural wisdom that no one can be judged for failing to do the impossible and that what is justifiable on grounds of impossibility is either a small sin or none at all."

"Under the plea that it is impossible not to sin, they are given a false sense of security in sinning ... Anyone who hears that it is not possible for him to be without sin will not even try to be what he judges to be impossible, and the man who does not try to be without sin must perforce sin all the time, and all the more boldly because he enjoys the false security of believing that it is impossible for him not to sin ... But if he were to hear that he is able not to sin, then he would have exerted himself to fulfil what he now knows to be possible when he is striving to fulfil it, to achieve his purpose for the most part, even if not entirely."

"Primus at ille labor versu tenuisse legentem Suspensum, incertumque dia qui denique rerum Eventus maneant."

"Jam vero cum rem propones, nomine nunquam Prodere conveniet manifesto: semper opertis Indiciis, longe et verborum ambage petita Significant, umbraque obducunt: inde tamen, ceu Sublustri e nebula, rerum tralucet imago Clarius, et certis datur omnia cernere signis. Hinc si dura mihi passus dicendus Ulysses, Non ilium vero memorabo nomine, sed qui Et mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes Naufragus, eversae post saeva incendia Trojae, Addam alia, angustis complectens omnia dictis."

"Saepe etiam memorandum inter ludicra memento, Permiscere aliquid breviter, mortalia corda Quod moveat, tangens humanae commoda vitae, Qodque olim jubeant natos meminisse parentes."

"Praeterea haud lateat te nil conarier artem, Naturam nisi ut assimulet, propiusque sequatur. Hanc unam vates sibi proposuere magistram: Quicquid agunt, hujus semper vestigia servant."

"Nec dubitem versus hirsuti saepe poetae Suspensus lustrare, et vestigare legendo, Sicubi se quaedam forte inter commoda versu Dicta meo ostendant, quae mox melioribus ipse Auspiciis proprios possim mihi vertere in usus, Detersa prorsus prisca rubigine scabra."

"Idcirco si quando ducum referenda virumque Nomina dura nimis dictu, atque asperrima cultu, Illa aliqui, nunc addentes, nunc inde putantes Pauca minutatim, levant, ac mollia reddunt."

"Principio quoniam magni commercia coeli Numina concessere homini, cui carmina curae, Ipse Deum genitor divinam noluit artem Omnibus expositam vulgo, immeritisque patere: Atque ideo, turbam quo longe arceret inertem, Angustam esse viam voluit, paucisque licere."

"Haud satis est illis utcunque claudere versum, Et res verborum propria vi reddere claras; Omnia sed numeris vocum concordibus aptant, Atque sono, quaecunque canunt, imitantur."

"Tunc longe sale saxa sonant, tunc et freta ventis Incipiunt agitata tumescere: littore fluctus Illidunt rauco."

"Gratantes plausu excipient: tua gloria coelo Succedet, nomenque tuum sinus ultimus orbis Audiet, ac nullo diffusum abolebitur aevo."

"Ipse viam tantum potui docuisse repertam Aonas ad montes, longeque ostendere Musas Plaudentes celsae choreas in vertice rupis."

"Ludimus effigiem belli, simulataque veris Praelia, buxo acies fictas, et ludicra regna, Ut gemini inter se reges albusque, nigerque Pro laude oppositi certent bicoloribus armis."

"But see! each Muse, in Leo's golden days, Starts from her trance, and trims her withered bays; Rome's ancient genius, o'er its ruins spread, Shakes off the dust, and rears his reverend head. Then sculpture and her sister-arts revive; Stones leaped to form, and rocks began to live; With sweeter notes each rising temple rung; A Raphael painted, and a Vida sung! Immortal Vida! on whose honoured brow The poet's bays and critic's ivy grow: Cremona now shall ever boast thy name, As next in place to Mantua, next in fame!"

"Non exprimis, aliquis inquit, Ciceronem. Quid tum? Non enim sum Cicero; me tamen, ut opinor, exprimo."

"To understand , Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Politian are just as valuable as and Sismondi."

"Alius quidam veterum poetarum, cuius nomen mihi nunc memoriae non est, Veritatem Temporis filiam esse dixit."

"Will you, laying aside all partiality, consider in the silence of your thoughts that we [humans] are creatures either quite like the rest [of animals], or separated by no great difference? For what is there to show that we do not resemble them? or what excellence is in us, such that we scorn to be ranked as creatures? Their bodies are built up on bones, and bound closely together by sinews; and our bodies are in like manner built up on bones, and bound closely together by sinews."

"I should wish, however, to know what this reason is, through which we are more excellent than all the tribes of animals. Is it because we have made for ourselves houses, by which we can avoid the cold of winter and heat of summer? What! do not the other animals show forethought in this respect? … But if nature, which gave them life, had chosen to give to them also hands to help them, they too would, without doubt, raise lofty buildings and strike out new works of art. Yet, even in those things which they make with beaks and claws, we see that there are many appearances of reason and wisdom which we men are unable to copy, however much we ponder them, although we have hands to serve us dexterously in every kind of work."

"But if men either knew themselves thoroughly, or had the slightest knowledge of God, they would never claim as their own a divine and immortal nature; nor would they think themselves something great because they have made for themselves gridirons, basins, and bowls, because they have made under-shirts, outer-shirts, cloaks, plaids, robes of state, knives, cuirasses and swords, mattocks, hatchets, ploughs. Never, I say, carried away by pride and arrogance, would they believe themselves to be deities of the first rank, and fellows of the highest in his exaltation, because they had devised the arts of grammar, music, oratory, and geometry. For we do not see what is so wonderful in these arts, that because of their discovery the soul should be believed to be above the sun as well as all the stars, to surpass both in grandeur and essence the whole universe, of which these are parts."

"We may therefore reckon Arnobius among those, who hold that the souls of beasts are rational. It is from him, without doubt, that Lactantius learned to put no other difference between them and man, but religion."

"Quos omnes libros conscripserunt homines otiosi, male feriati, imperiti, vitiis ac spurcitiae dediti, in queis miror quid delectet nisi tam nobis flagitia blandirentur. Eruditio non est exspectanda ab hominibus qui ne umbram quidem eruditionis viderant. Iam cum narrant, quae potest esse delectatio in rebus quas tam aperte et stulte confingunt?"

"In corpore ipso quid forma est? nempe cuticula bene colorata?"

"[P]robability as a measurable degree of certainty; necessity and chance; moral versus mathematical expectation; a priori an a posteriori probability; expectation of winning when players are divided according to dexterity; regard of all available arguments, their valuation, and their calculable evaluation; law of large numbers..."

"The art of measuring, as precisely as possible, probabilities of things, with the goal that we would be able always to choose or follow in our judgments and actions that course, which will have been determined to be better, more satisfactory, safer or more advantageous."

"Eadem mutata resurgo [Changed and yet the same, I rise again]"

"Elastic Curve is the name that James Bernoulli gave to the curve which is formed by an elastic blade, fixed horizontally by one of its extremities in a vertical plane, and loaded at the other extremity with a weight, which by its gravity bends the blade into a curve... This problem is resolved by James Bernoulli in the "Memoirs of the Acad. of Sciences for 1703;" and other solutions have been given by some of the most celebrated mathematicians of Europe..."

"In 1690... Jacob Bernoulli brought up the problem of the catenary in a memoir... in the '...Huygens' solution represents the past... a complex, though skillful, geometrical method. Leibniz, using his new [infinitesimal calculus] reaches a correct analytical formula...y/a = (b^\frac{x}{a} + b^\frac{-x}{a})/2 where a is [a] segment... and b... corresponds to... e... Johann Bernoulli ...supplied two correct constructions ...presents valid statistical arguments and... new and important... equations of equilibrium in differential form. ...In 1697-1698, Jacob Bernoulli was the first to derive the general equations that not only solved the problem, but also permitted the treatment of the more general theme of the equilibrium of a flexible rope, subject to any distribution of tangential (f_t) and normal (f_n) forces. Bernoulli's equations are...\frac{dT}{ds} + f_t = 0, \qquad \frac{T}{r} + f_n= 0where T is the tension, s the curvilinear abscissa, and r the radius of curvature."

"The term "induction" had been used by John Wallis in 1656, in his Arithmetica infinitorum; he used the induction known to natural science. In 1686 Jacob Bernoulli criticised him for using a process which was not binding logically and then advanced in place of it the proof from n to n + 1. This is one of the several origins of the process of mathematical induction."

"The tract in which Leibnitz deals with series appeared late in the seventeenth century and was among the first on the subject. ...the question of their convergence or divergence ...was in those days more or less ignored. ...It was not until the publication of Jacques Bernoulli's work on infinite series in 1713 that a clearer insight into the problem was gained. ...Bernoulli's work directed attention towards the necessity of establishing criteria of convergence. The evanescence of the general term, i.e., of the generating sequence, is certainly a necessary condition, but this is generally insufficient. Sufficient conditions have been established by d'Alembert and Maclauren, Cauchy, Abel, and many others. ...to recognized whether a series converges or diverges is even today rather difficult in some cases."

"The great invention... Descartes gave to the world, the analytical diagram, ...gives at a glance a graphical picture of the law governing a phenomenon, or of the correlation which exists between dependent events, or of the changes which a situation undergoes in the course of time. ...the invention of Descartes not only created the important discipline of analytic geometry, but it gave Newton, Leibnitz, Euler, and the Bernoullis that weapon for the lack of which Archimedes and later Fermat had to leave inarticulate their profound and far-reaching thoughts."

"The name is due to Jacques Bernoulli. The spiral has been called also the geometrical spiral, and the proportional spiral, but more commonly, because of the property observed by Descartes, the equiangular spiral. Bernoulli (and Collins at an earlier date) noted the analogous generation of the spiral and loxodrome ("loxodromica"), the spherical curve which cuts all meridians under a constant angle. ... During 1691-93 Jacques Bernoulli gave the following theorems among others: (a) Logarithmic spirals defined [by the polar equation \rho = ke^{c\theta} of a curve cutting radial vectors (drawn from a certain fixed point 0) under a constant angle \phi , where k is constant and c = cot\phi] for different values of k are equal and have the same asymptotic point; (b) the evolute of a logarithmic spiral is another equal logarithmic spiral having the same asymptotic point; (c) the pedal of a logarithmic spiral with respect to its pole is an equal logarithmic spiral (d) the caustics by reflection and refraction of a logarithmic spiral for rays emanating from the pole as a luminous point are equal logarithmic spirals. The discovery of such "perpetual renascence" of the spiral delighted Bernoulli. "Warmed with the enthusiasm of genius he desired, in imitation of Archimedes, to have the logarithmic spiral engraved on his tomb, and directed, in allusion to the sublime tenet of the resurrection of the body, this emphatic inscription to be affixed—Eadem mutata resurgo." The engraved spiral (very inaccurately executed) and inscription in accordance with Bernoulli's desire, may be seen to-day on his tomb in the cloister of the cathedral at Basel."

"The foundations of the new analysis were laid in the second half of the seventeenth century when Newton... and Leibnitz... founded the Differential and Integral Calculus, the ground having been to some extent prepared by the labours of Huyghens, Fermat, Wallis, and others. By this great invention of Newton and Leibnitz, and with the help of the brothers James Bernoulli... and John Bernoulli... the ideas and methods of the Mathematicians underwent a radical transformation which naturally had a profound effect upon our problem."

"It was in 1691, that the penetrating genius of James Bernoulli discovered the true nature of the catenarian curve. A similar investigation was soon produced by John Bernoulli, by Huygens, and by Leibnitz."

"The first investigation of any importance is that of the elastic line or elastica by James Bernoulli in 1705, in which the resistance of a bent rod is assumed to arise from the extension and contraction of its longitudinal filaments, and the equation of the curve assumed by the axis is formed. This equation practically involves the result that the resistance to bending is a couple proportional to the of the rod when bent, a result which was assumed by Euler in his later treatment of the problems of the elastica, and of the vibrations of thin rods."

"There is... [a] need to code cheaper and accessible programs in line with using sustainable methods to better the livelihood of mankind. To address this issue a theory is formulated based on the Euler-Bernoulli beam model. This model is applicable to thin elements which include plate and membrane elements. This paper illustrates a finite element theory to calculate the master stiffness of a curved plate. The master takes into account the stiffness, the geometry and the loading of the element. The of this is established from which the load which is unknown in the matrix is evaluated by the principle of bifurcation."

"The remarkable principle of James Bernoulli consists exactly of this... namely, that the mean given by a series of trials falls near the number sought within limits so much the more narrow as the trials are more multiplied. All the properties which result from his learned researches constitute one of the most honourable monuments to his memory. But Bernoulli established his calculations on the hypothesis that the number sought was fixed and determined. ... It may happen that this quantity will experience small variations... But the principle of Bernoulli is still applicable to this case and has been demonstrated by M. Poisson by means of analysis. ...In the case before us the experiments should generally be very numerous: it is for this reason that M. Poisson has designated the extension of Bernoulli's principle as the law of great numbers."

"[T]he writings of the Bernoullis are not antiquated from loss of beauty, nor deserve neglect..."

"Notwithstanding the broad foundation for mechanics laid by Newton in his Principia, and notwithstanding the indefatigable labors of Clairaut, d'Alembert, the Bernoullis, and Euler, there was near the end of the eighteenth century no comprehensive treatise on the science. Its leading principles and methods were fairly well known, but scattered through many works, and presented from divers points of view. It remained for Lagrange to unite them into one harmonious system. Mechanics had not yet freed itself from the restrictions of geometry, though progress since Newton's time had been constantly toward analytical... methods. The emancipation came with Lagrange's Mécanique Analytique published one hundred and one years after the Principia."

"[H]e was soon seconded by two illustrious men, who adopted his method with such ardour, rendered it so completely their own, and made so many elegant applications of it that Leibnitz several times published in the journals, with a disinterestedness worthy of so great a man, that it was as much indebted to them as to himself. ...I am speaking of the two brothers James and John Bernoulli."

"We find an excellent tract by James Bernoulli concerning the elastic curve, isochronous curves, the path of mean direction in the course of a vessel, the inverse method of tangents, &c. On most of these subjects he had treated already; but here he has given them with additions, corrections, and improvements. His scientific discussions are interspersed with some historical circumstances, which will be read with pleasure. Here for the first time he repels the unjust and repeated attacks of his brother; and exhorts him to moderate his pretensions; to attach less importance to discoveries, which the instrument, with which they were both furnished, rendered easy; and to acknowledge, that, 'as quantities in geometry increase by degrees, so every man, furnished with the same instrument, would find by degrees the same results.' Very modest and remarkable expressions from the pen of one of the greatest geometricians, that ever lived. This memoir concluded with an invitation to mathematicians, to sum up a very general differential equation, of great use in analysis. The solution which James Bernoulli had found of this problem, as well as those which Leibnitz and John Bernoulli gave of it, were published in the Leipsic Transactions."

"[Newton] teaches us to take the fluxions, of any given order, of an equation with any given number of variable quantities, which belongs to the differential calculus: but he does not inform us, how to solve the inverse problem; that is to say, he has pointed out no means of resolving differential equations, either immediately, or by the separation of the indeterminate quantities, or by the reduction into series, &c. This theory however had already made very considerable progress in Germany, Holland, and France, as may be concluded from the problems of the catenarian, isochronous, and elastic curves, and particularly by the solution which James Bernoulli had given of the isoperimetrical problem."

"History of calculus"

"Mathematics"

"After the wretched fall of the kingdom of Jerusalem, after the lamentable slaughter of the people of Christendom, after the deplorable invasion of that land on which the feet of Christ had stood, and where God, our King, had deigned to work our salvation in the midst of the earth, after the ignominious removal of the life-giving cross on which the salvation of the world had been hanged, and thereby blotted out the signature of the old death, the Apostolic See, alarmed at the awful recurrence of disasters so unfortunate, was struck with agonizing grief, exclaiming and bewailing to such a degree that, from her continual crying, her throat became hoarse. ... Still the Apostolic See cries aloud, and she raises her voice like a trumpet, trying to arouse the nations of Christendom to fight the battles of Christ, and to avenge the injuries done to him crucified."

"For behold, our inheritance has gone to strangers, our houses to alien people. ... The sepulcher of the Lord, which the prophet foretold should be so glorious, has been profaned by the unrighteous and has thereby been made inglorious. ... Take, therefore, my sons, the spirit of fortitude, the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation, putting your trust in God, not in numbers nor in your strength, but rather trusting in the power of God, to whom it is not difficult to save either with many or the few."

"Who, then, in a case of such great emergency shall refuse to pay obedience to Jesus Christ? When he comes to stand before Christ's tribunal to be judged, what answer will he be able to make to him in defense of himself? If God has submitted himself to death for man, is man to hesitate to submit to death for God? ... Shall then the servant deny temporal riches to his lord when his lord bestows on the servant riches that are eternal. ... Let each and all, then, prepare themselves so that in the next month of March [1199] each city by itself and...each of the earls and barons should...send a number of warriors to the defense of the land of the nativity of our Lord. ... we especially conceive as one of our chief concerns our desire to apply every energy to the rescue of the lands of the East."

"O how great a benefit will result from this cause; how many, converted to penitence, have handed themselves over by service of the Crucified for the liberation of the Holy Land, as is by suffering martyrdom they have obtained the crown of glory, who would perhaps have perished in their iniquities entangled in carnal desires and earthly seductions. This is an old device of Jesus Christ that he deigned to renew in these days for the salvation of his faithful. .. Thus the King of kings, our Lord Jesus Christ, who brought body and soul and other goods to you, will condemn you for the vice of ingratitude and the crime of infidelity if you should fail to aid him with the result that he lost his kingdom that he brought with the price of his blood."

"Know then that whoever denies aid to the Redeemer in this time of his need is culpably harsh and harshly culpable. For, also, insofar as, according to the divine command, he loves his neighbor as himself and for him, he knows that this brethren in faith and in the Christian name are imprisoned by the faithless Saracens in a cruel prison and endure the harsh yoke of slavery, he does not expend the efficacious work for their liberation, that the Lord spoke of in the Gospel. "Do to others whatever you wish them to do to you". Or perhaps you do not know that many thousands of Christians are held in prison and slavery by them and they suffer countless torments?"

"...the Christian people possessed almost all the Saracen provinces until after the time of Saint Gregory. But after that time, a certain son of perdition, the pseudo-prophet Muhammad, arose, and he seduced many away from the truth with carnal enticements and pleasures. Even though his perfidy lasted until the present, still we trust in the Lord who has now made a good sign that the end of this beast, whose number, according to John's Apocalypse, counts 666, of which now almost six hundred years are completed approaches. ... Therefore, dearly beloved sons, changing dissensions and fratricidal jealousies into treaties of peace and goodwill, let us gird ourselves to come to the aid of the Crucified, not hesitating to risk property and life for him who laid down his life and shed his blood for us."

"As Cain was a wanderer and an outcast, not to be killed by anyone but marked with the sign of fear on his forehead, so the Jews ... against whom the voice of the blood of Christ cries out ... although they are not to be killed they must always be dispersed as wanderers upon the face of the earth."

"Although Christian piety tolerates the Jews ... whose own fault commits them to perpetual slavery ... and allows them to continue with us (even though the Moors will not tolerate them), they must not be allowed to remain ungrateful to us in such a way as to repay us with contumely for favors and contempt for our familiarity. They are admitted to our familiarity only through our mercy; but they are to us dangerous as the insect in the apple, as the serpent in the breast * * * Since, therefore, they have already begun to gnaw like the rat, and to stink like the serpent, it is to our shame that the fire in our breast which is being eaten into by them, does not consume them * * * As they are reprobate slaves of the Lord, in whose death they evilly conspired (at least by the effect of the deed), let them acknowledge themselves as slaves of those whom the death of Christ has made free."

"Although it be not displeasing to the Lord, but rather acceptable to Him, that the Jewish Dispersion should live and serve under Christian princes * * * they greatly offend in the sight of God’s Divine Majesty who prefer the offspring of the Crucifiers before those who are the heirs of Christ. * * * It has come to our knowledge that in the kingdom of France Jews have so much liberty that, under a species of usury — by which they not only extort interest, but interest from interest — they obtain control of the goods of the churches and the possessions of the Christians. * * * Furthermore, although it was decreed in the Lateran Council that Jews be not permitted to have Christian servants in their homes, either as tutors for their children or for domestic service, or for any reason whatsoever, they still persist in having Christians as servants and nurses, with whom they commit abominations of a kind which it rather becomes you to punish than us to explain. And again, although the same Council laid it down that the testimony of Christians against Jews is to be admitted, even when the former use Jewish witnesses against Christians, and decreed that in a case of this kind anyone who would prefer Jews before Christians is to be condemned as anathema, yet up to the present time things are so carried on in the kingdom of France that the testimony of Christians against Jews is not believed, whereas Jews are admitted as witnesses against Christians. And at times, when they to whom Jews have loaned money with usury produce Christian witnesses about the facts of payment, THE DEED WHICH THE CHRISTIAN DEBTOR THROUGH NEGLIGENCE INDISCREETLY LEFT WITH THEM IS BELIEVED RATHER THAN THE WITNESSES WHOM THEY BRING FORWARD. On Good Friday also, contrary to the law of old, they walk through the streets and public squares, and meeting Christians who everywhere according to custom go to adore the Crucifix, they deride them and strive to prevent them from this duty of adoration. We warn and exhort Your Serene Majesty in the Lord (adding the remission of your sins) that you force the Jews from their presumption * * * and see to it that due punishment be meted out to all such blasphemers, and that an easy pardon be not given to delinquents."

"Crusading in general had Innocent's full support. War against the infidel was 'the battle of Christ', and he shared the conviction of his predecessors that the recovery of the Holy Places from Muslim rule was the special responsibility of the Pope."

"He was vigorous and able, good and clever, a right man at a most critical period for the coming of the XIIIth century was a time when the feudal structure, so indispensable, apparently, to the framework of the Church, was weakening before the formations of nationalism. ... He demanded and received universal allegiance, the papal dignity grew and no monarch could escape, if the occasion demanded, from the sting of his ire or the lash of his chastisement."

"Take heed that ye love not human glory in any respect, lest your portion also be reckoned among those to whom it was said, "How can ye believe, who seek glory, one from another?" [John 5:44] and of whom it is said through the prophet, "Increase evils to them; increase evils to the boastful of the earth" [Isaiah 26:15]; and elsewhere, "Ye are confounded from your boasting, from your reproaching in the sight of the Lord." [Jeremiah 12:13] For I do not wish you to have regard to those, who are virgins of the world, and not of Christ; who unmindful of their purpose and profession, rejoice in delicacies, are delighted with riches, and boast of their descent from a merely carnal nobility; who, if they assuredly believed themselves to be the daughters of God, would never, after their divine ancestry, admire mere human nobility, nor glory in any honored earthly father: if they felt that they had God as their Father, they would not love any nobility connected with the flesh."

"God, at the beginning, created two human beings, from whom the whole multitude of the human race has descended; and thus it is not the equity of nature, but the ambition of evil desire, which has given rise to worldly nobility."

"Humility is the good and solid foundation of virtues; should it waver, the whole house of virtues collapses."

"Reading seeks for the sweetness of a blessed life, meditation perceives it, prayer asks for it, contemplation tastes it."

"There is little sweetness in the study of the literal sense, unless there be a commentary, which is found in the heart, to reveal the inward sense."

"What is the use of spending one's time in continuous reading, turning the pages of the lives and sayings of holy men, unless we can extract nourishment from them by chewing and digesting this food so that its strength can pass into our inmost heart?"

"O my God, so good and tender and kind, dear friend, wise counselor, powerful support, how heartless and rash is the man who rejects you, who casts from his heart so humble and gentle a guest!"

"Let him sit alone, the Scripture says; and indeed, unless he sits and rests, he will not be alone."

"He who is mounted on pride does not know how to sit still."

"He who is not alone cannot be silent. And he who is not silent cannot hear you when you speak to him."

"Let all my world be silent in your presence, Lord, so that I may hear what the Lord God may say in my heart. Your words are so softly spoken that no one can hear them except in deep silence."

"If the infant is male and it looks as though it has no foreskin, she should gently draw the tip of the foreskin forward or even hold it together with a strand of wool to fasten it. For if gradually stretched and continuously drawn forward it easily stretches and assumes its normal length, covers the glans and becomes accustomed to keep the natural good shape."

"Thou shalt go no further, nor touch the man; go back with all speed."

"Where comes a cow, there follows a woman; and where comes a woman follows trouble."

"Carmine formosae, pretio capiuntur avarae: gaudeat, ut digna est, versibus ilia novis."

"A crudele genus nec fidum femina nomen! a pereat, didicit fallere si qua virum."

"Nescis quid sit amor, iuvenis, si ferre recusas immitem dominam coniugiumque ferum."

"Ei mihi, difficile est imitari gaudia falsa, difficile est tristi fingere mente iocum."

"Exaudi, regina tui pulcherrima mundi, inter sidereos Roma recepta polos, exaudi, genetrix hominum genetrixque deorum, non procul a caelo per tua templa sumus."

"Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam: profuit iniustis te dominante capi. dumque offers victis proprii consortia iuris, urbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat."

"Quod regnas minus est quam quod regnare mereris: excedis factis grandia fata tuis."

"Percensere labor densis decora alta tropaeis ut si quis stellas pernumerare velit; confunduntque vagos delubra micantia visus: ipsos crediderim sic​ habitare deos."

"Atque utinam numquam Iudaea subacta fuisset Pompeii bellis imperiisque Titi! latius excisae pestis contagia serpunt, victoresque suos natio victa premit."

"Impulsus furiis homines terrasque reliquit et turpem latebram credulus exsul adit, infelix putat illuvie caelestia pasci seque premit laesis saevior ipse deis. num, rogo, deterior Circaeis secta venenis? tunc mutabantur corpora, nunc animi."

""Nam quae praeda, rogas, quae spes contingere posset, iurgia nutricis cum mihi verba darent?"Haec sibi dicta putet seque hac sciat arte notari, femineam quisquis credidit esse fidem."

"Non sine supremo magna labore peti."

"Sic quicumque nova sublatus laude tumescit, dat merito poenas, dum meliora cupit."

"Metiri se quemque decet propriisque iuvari laudibus, alterius nec bona ferre sibi."

"Tum sortem sapiens humanam risit Apollo, invidiaeque malum rettulit ipse Iovi, quae, dum proventis aliorum gaudet iniquis, laetior infelix et sua damna cupit."

"Postquam nulla viam virtus dedit, admovet omnes indignata nova calliditate dolos."

"Viribus haec docuit quam sit prudentia maior."

"Non quia magna tibi tribuerunt membra parentes viribus effectum constituere tuis."

"Sic qui cuncta deos uno male tempore poscunt, iustius his etiam vota diurna negant."

"Quisquis torpentem passus transisse iuventam, nec timuit vitae providus ante mala, collectus senio, postquam gravis adfuit aetas, heu frustra alterius saepe rogabit opem."

"Proderit ergo graves quamvis perferre labores, otia quam tenerum mox peritura pati."

"Est hominum sors ista, magis felicibus ut mors sit cita, cum miseris vita diurna negat."

"Vade" ait "et pictae nimium confide iuventae, dum mihi consilium pulchrius esse queat, miremurque magis quos munera mentis adornant, quam qui corporeis enituere bonis."

"Avianus can scarcely be called a poet. His tasteless, strained, imprecise Latin, with its constant inappropriate Virgilian reminiscences, might have been written by a nineteenth-century public schoolboy."

"Pinge, precor, pictor, tali candore puellam, Qualem pinxit Amor, qualem meus ignis anhelat. Nil pingendo neges; tegat omnia Serica vestis, Quae totum prodat tenui velamine corpus. Te quoque pulset amor, crucient pigmenta medullas: Si bonus es pictor, miseri suspiria pinge."

"Dic quid agis, formosa Venus, si nescis amanti Ferre vicem. Perit omne decus, dum deperit aetas. Marcent post rorem violae, rosa perdit odorem, Lilia post vernum posito candore nigrescunt. Haec metuas exempla precor et semper amanti Redde vicem, quia semper amat, qui semper amatur."

"Non redit in florem, sed munus perdit amantis, Quidquid vile jacet: dulce est, quodcumque negatur. Nam si formosam facilem penetravit amator, Fallit adulterio et munus perdit amantis."

"Vexilla regis prodeunt: Fulget crucis mysterium Quo carne carnis conditor, Suspensus est patibulo."

"Crux fidelis, inter omnes Arbor una nobilis: Nulla silva talem profert, Fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulces clavos, Dulce pondus sustinet."

"Deos enim reliquos accepimus, Caesares dedimus."

"Lento enim gradu ad vindictam sui divina procedit ira tarditatemque supplicii gravitate pensat."

"Aspero enim et absciso castigationis genere militaris disciplina indiget, quia vires armis constant, quae ubi a recto tenore desciverint, oppressura sunt, nisi opprimantur."

"Multo enim multoque seipsum quam hostem superare operosius est."

"Speciosius aliquanto iniuriae beneficiis vincuntur quam mutui odii pertinacia pensantur."

"Haec ... ornamenta sunt mea."

"Ubi idem et maximus et honestissimus amor est, aliquanto praestat morte iungi quam distrahi vita."

"Verum nulla tam modesta felicitas est, quae malignitatis dentes vitare possit."

"Mirifice et ille artifex, qui in opere suo moneri se a sutore de crepida et ansulis passus, de crure etiam disputare incipientem supra plantam ascendere vetuit."

"Cane mihi et Musis."

"Ingrata · Patria · Ne · Ossa · Quidem · Mea · Habes."

"Noli, obsecro, istum disturbare."

"Provocarem ad Philippum, inquit, sed sobrium."

"Vicit, Magne, felicitatem tuam mea fortuna. Quid enim ex funesta Crassorum domo recipiebas nisi ut minueretur magnitudo tua?"

"[[w:Haec ornamenta mea|Haec ... ornamenta [sunt] mea]]."

"O curas hominum! O quantum est in rebus inane!"

"Vivite lurcones, comedones, vivite ventris!"

"Ut pueri infantes credunt signa omnia aena vivere et esse homines, sic isti somnia ficta vera putant, credunt signis cor inesse in aenis. Pergula pictorum, veri nil, omnia ficta."

"Aurum vis hominemne? Habeas. "Hominem? quid ad aurum?""

"Publicanus vero ut Asiae fiam, ut scripturarius pro Lucilio, id ego nolo et uno hoc non muto omnia."

"Homini amico et familiari non est mentiri meum."

"Ut Romanus populus victus vei, superatus proeliis saepe est multis, bello vero numquam, in quo sunt omnia."

"Hunc laborem sumas laudem qui tibi ac fructum ferat."

"Paulo hoc melius quam mediocre, hoc minus malum quam ut pessumum."

"Cupiditas ex homine cupido ex stulto numquam tollitur."

"Accipiunt leges, populus quibus legibus exlex."

"Nunc vero a mani ad noctem festo atque profesto totus item pariterque die populusque patresque iactare indu foro se omnes, decedere nusquam; uni se atque eidem studio omnes dedere et arti— verba dare ut caute possint, pugnare dolose, blanditia certare, bonum simulare virum se, insidias facere ut si hostes sint omnibus omnes."

"Quo fit ut omnis Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella Vita senis."

"Ense velut stricto quotiens Lucilius ardens infremuit, rubet auditor cui frigida mens est criminibus, tacita sudant praecordia culpa."

"Secuit Lucilius urbem, te Lupe, te Muci, et genuinum fregit in illis; omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico tangit et admissus circum praecordia ludit, callidus excusso populum suspendere naso."

"Si possent homines delenimentis capi, Omnes haberent nunc amatores anus. Aetas et corpus tenerum et morigeratio, Haec sunt uenena formosarum mulierum: Mala aetas nulla delenimenta inuenit."

"Alius est amor, alius cupido."

"Amabit sapiens, cupient caeteri."

"Isto parentum est vita vilis liberis, Ubi malunt metui, quam vereri se ab suis."

"Usus me genuit, mater peperit Memoria. Sophiam vocant me Grai, vos Sapientiam."

"Formosa virgo est; dotis dimidium vocant Isti, qui dotes neglegunt uxorias."

"Men servasse ut essent qui me perderent?"

"Flucti flacciscunt, silescunt venti, mollitur mare."

"O flexanima atque omnium regina rerum oratio!"

"Conqueri fortunam advorsam, non lamentari decet; id viri est officium, fletus muliebri ingenio additust."

"Patria est, ubicumque est bene."

"Adulescens, tam etsi properas te hoc saxum rogat Ut sese aspicias, deinde quod scriptum est legas. Hic sunt poetae Pacuvi Marci sita Ossa. Hoc volebam nescius ne esses. Vale."

"Fortunam insanam esse et caecam et brutam perhibent philosophi, ... Insanam autem esse aiunt quia atrox incerta instabilisque sit; caecam ob eam rem esse iterant quia nil cernat quo sese adplicet; brutam quia dignum atque indignum nequeat internoscere. Sunt autem alii philosophi qui contra Fortunam negant esse ullam sed temeritate res regi umnes autumant. Id magis verisimile esse usus reapse experiundo edocet."

"Quem nulla ambitio, nulla umquam largitio, nullus timor, vis nulla, nulla auctoritas movere potuit in iuventa de statu, ecce in senecta ut facile labefecit loco viri excellentis mente clemente edita summissa placide blandiloquens oratio?"

"Ut hedera serpens vires arboreas necat, ita me vetustas amplexu annorum enecat. sepulcri similis nihil nisi nomen retineo."

"Porro, Quirites, libertatem perdimus."

"Necesse est multos timeat quem multi timent."

"Non possunt primi esse omnes omni in tempore. summum ad gradum cum claritatis veneris, consistes aegre et citius quam ascendas cades. cecidi ego, cadet qui sequitur: laus est publica."

"Tantum abest, ut ego magistram esse putem vitae philosophiam beataeque vitae perfectricem, ut nullis magis existimem opus esse magistros vivendi quam plerisque qui in ea disputanda versantur. Video enim magnam partem eorum qui in schola de pudore et continentia praecipiant argutissime, eosdem in omnium ibidinum cupiditatibus vivere."

"Putamus malo fuisse nimiam opinionem ingenii atque virtutis."

"Matrem timidi flere non solere."

"Miseranda vita, qui se metui, quam amari malunt."

"Est enim hoc commune vitium in magnis liberisque civitatibus, ut invidia gloriae comes sit; et libenter de iis detrahunt quos eminere videant altius, neque animo aequo pauperes alienam opulentium intuuntur fortunam."

"Magnos homines virtute metimur, non fortuna."

"Sed multorum obtrectatio devicit unius virtutem."

"Sui cuique mores fingunt fortunam hominibus."

"Plus salis, quam sumptus."

"Elegans, non magnificus, splendidus, non sumptuosus; omnisque diligentia munditiam, non adfluentiam adfectabat."

"John Selby Watson, Lives of the Eminent Commanders (1886)"

"Norbert Gutterman, A Book of Latin Quotations (1966), pp. 84–7"

"A virgo infelix, herbis pasceris amaris."

"Cum iam fulva cinis fuero ..."

"Lilium, vaga candido nympha quod secet ungui."

"Custodes ovium tenerae propaginis, agnum, Quaeritis ignem? ite huc; quaeritis? ignis homost. Si digito attigero, incendam silvam simul omnem, Omne pecus flammast, omnia qua video."

"Dum lasciviam nobilium et laudes fucosas petit, Dum Africani vocem divinam inhiat avidis auribus, Dum ad Philum se cenitare et Laelium pulchrum putat, Dum in Albanum crebro rapitur ob florem aetatis suae: Post sublatis rebus ad summam inopiam redactus est. Itaque e conspectu omnium abit Graeciam in terram ultimam, Mortuust Stymphali, Arcadiae in oppido. Nil Publius Scipio profuit, nil illi Laelius, nil Furius, Tres per id tempus qui agitabant nobiles facillime. Eorum ille opera ne domum quidem habuit conducticiam, Saltem ut esset quo referret obitum domini servulus."

"Poenico bello secundo Musa pinnato gradu Intulit se bellicosam in Romuli gentem feram."

"Tene magis salvum populus velit an populum tu? servet in ambiguo, qui consulit et tibi et Urbi, Iuppiter."

"Mirum videtur quod sit factum iam diu?"

"Praestatur laus virtuti, sed multo ocius verno gelu tabescit."

"Lepus tute es; et pulpamentum quaeris!"

"Virum mihi, Camena, insece versutum, ..."

"... namque nullum peius macerat humanum quamde mare saevum; vires cui sunt magnae topper confringent inportunae undae."

"Cum socios nostros Ciclops impius mandisset, ..."

"Paucae domus studiorum seriis cultibus antea celebratae, nunc ludibriis ignavae torpentis exundant. ... Pro philosopho cantor, et in locum oratoris doctor artium ludicrarum accitur, et bibliothecis sepulcrorum ritu in perpetuum clausis, organa fabricantur hydraulica, et lyrae ad speciem carpentorum ingentes."

"Veritatis enim absolutio semper est simplex."

"De fumo, ... ad flammam."

"Cum nos cauti vel (ut verius dixerim) timidi, nihil exaggeremus, praeter ea quae fidei testimonia neque incerta monstrarunt."

"Christianam religionem absolutam et simplicem anili superstitione confundens, in qua scrutanda perplexius quam componenda gravius excitavit discidia plurima, quae progressa fusius aluit concertatione verborum, ut catervis antistitum iumentis publicis ultro citroque discurrentibus per synodos (quas appellant), dum ritum omnem ad suum trahere conatur arbitrium, rei vehiculariae succederet nervos."

"Dissidentes Christianorum antistites cum plebe discissa in palatium intromissos, monebat civilius, ut discordiis consopitis, quisque nulla vetante, religioni suae serviret intrepidus. Quod agebat ideo obstinate ut dissensiones augente licentia, non timeret unanimantem postea plebem, nullas infestas hominibus bestias, ut sunt sibi ferales plerique Christianorum expertus."

"Illud autem erat inclemens, obruendum perenni silentio, quod arcebat docere magistros rhetoricos et grammaticos, ritus Christiani cultores."

"His accedunt altis sufflata fastigiis templa, inter quae eminet Serapeum, quod licet minuatur exilitate verborum, atriis tamen columnariis amplissimis et spirantibus signorum figmentis et reliqua operum multitudine ita est exornatum, ut post Capitolium, quo se venerabilis Roma in aeternum attollit, nihil orbis terrarum ambitiosius cernat."

"Superstitiosus magis quam sacrorum legitimus observator, innumeras sine parsimonia pecudes mactans, ut aestimaretur (si revertisset de Parthis), boves iam defuturos."

"Damasus et Ursinus, supra humanum modum ad rapiendam episcopi sedem ardentes, scissis studiis asperrime conflictabantur, ad usque mortis vulnerumque discrimina adiumentis utriusque progressis. ... In basilica Sicinini, ubi ritus Christiani est conventiculum, uno die centum triginta septem reperta cadavera peremptorum. ... Qui esse poterant beati re vera, si magnitudine urbis despecta, quam vitiis opponunt, ad imitationem antistitum quorundam provincialium viverent, quos tenuitas edendi potandique parcissime, vilitas etiam indumentorum, et supercilia humum spectantia, perpetuo numini, verisque eius cultoribus, ut puros commendant, et verecundos."

"Haec ut miles quondam et Graecus, a principatu Caesaris Nervae exorsus, ad usque Valentis interitum, pro virium explicavi mensura: opus veritatem professum numquam (ut arbitror) sciens silentio ausus corrumpere, vel mendacio. Scribant reliqua potiores, aetate et doctrinis florentes. Quos id (si libuerit) aggressuros, procudere linguas ad maiores moneo stilos."

"Orbilius ubinam est, litterarum oblivio?"

"Si quis forte mei domum Catonis, Depictas minio assulas, et illos Custodis videt hortulos Priapi: Miratur, quibus ille disciplinis Tantam sit sapientiam assecutus, Quem tres cauliculi, selibra farris. Racemi duo tegula sub una Ad summam prope nutriant senectam."

"Catonis modo, Galle, Tusculanum Tota creditor urbe venditabat. Mirati sumus unicum magistrum, Summum grammaticum, optumum poetam Omnes solvere posse quaestiones, Unum deficere expedire nomen: En cor Zenodoti, en iecur Cratetis!"

"Furi cui neque servus est neque arca ..."

"Furi, villula vestra non ad Austri flatus opposita est neque ad Favoni nec saevi Boreae aut Aphelotae, verum ad milia quindecim et ducentos. Ō ventum horribilem atque pestilentem!"

"Non esse sibi dicens rem cum Furio Bibaculo, ne cum Ticida quidem aut litteratore Catone."

"Persta atque obdura, seu rubra Canicula findet infantis statuas, seu pingui tentus omaso Furius hibernas cana nive conspuet Alpis."

"Emil Bährens, Fragmenta Poetarum Romanorum (Leipzig, 1886), p. 317"

"J. C. Rolfe, Suetonius, Vol. 2, LCL 38 (1914), pp. 403, 415"

"H. Rushton Fairclough, Horace: Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica, LCL 194 (1926), pp. 118, 200"

"Richard F. Burton; Leonard C. Smithers, The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus (1894), p. 48"

"H. W. Garrod, The Oxford Book of Latin Verse (1912), nos. 52–53"

"Te Andromacha per ludum manu lasciuola ac tenellula capiti meo, trepidans libens insolita plexit munera."

"Corpore (inquit) pectoreque undique obeso ac Mente exsensa tardigenuclo Senio obpressum."

"Venus amoris altrix, genetrix cupiditatis, mihi quae diem serenum hilarula praepandere cresti, opesculae tuae ac ministrae."

"The grammarians too were so highly esteemed, and their compensation was so ample, that Lutatius Daphnis, whom Laevius Melissus, punning on his name, often called the “darling of Pan,” is known to have been bought for seven hundred thousand sesterces and soon afterwards set free."

"Emil Bährens, Fragmenta Poetarum Romanorum (Leipzig, 1886), p. 287"

"W. W. Merry, Selected Fragments of Roman Poetry, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1898), pp. 182–5"

"J. C. Rolfe, Suetonius, Vol. 2, LCL 38 (1914), p. 400"

"J. C. Rolfe, The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, Vol. 1, LCL 195 (1927), p. 204"

"J. C. Rolfe, The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, Vol. 3, LCL 195 (1928), pp. 366, 380"

"H. W. Garrod, The Oxford Book of Latin Verse (1912), no. 51"

"Kenneth Quinn, The Catullan Revolution (1959), p. 15"

"C. F. Heffernan, The Phoenix at the Fountain (1988), p. 35"

"Priscos cum haberes, quos probares, indices, lector, placere qui bonis possent modis, nostri libelli cur retexis paginam nugis refertam friuolisque sensibus, et quam tenello tiro lusi uiscere? set forte doctis si illa cara est auribus sonat pusilli quae leporis commate nullo decora in ambitu sententiae, hanc iure quaeris et libenter incohas, uelut iocosa si theatra peruoles."

"Hortus, quo faciles fluunt Napaeae, quo ludunt Dryades choro uirente, quo fouet teneras Diana Nymphas; quo Venus roseos recondit artus, quo fessus teretes Cupido flammas suspensis reficit puer pharetris, quo ferunt se Heliconides puellae; cui numquam minus est amoena frondis, cui semper redolent amoma uerni, cui fons perspicuis tener fluentis muscoso riguus salit meatu, quo dulcis auium canor resultans quidquid per Tyrias refertur urbis, hoc uno famulans loco subaptat."

"Hanc puto de proprio tinxit Sol aureus ortu aut unum ex radiis maluit esse suis; uel, si etiam centum foliis rosa Cypridis exstat, fluxit in hanc omni sanguine tota Venus. haec florum sidus, haec Lucifer almus in agris, huic odor et color est dignus honore poli."

"Igne salutifero Veneris puer omnia flammans pro facibus facilis arte ministrat aquas."

"Paruus nobilium cum liber ad domos pomposique fori scrinia publica cinctus multifido ueneris agmine, nostri defugiens pauperiem laris, quo dudum modico sordidus angulo squalebas, tineis iam prope debitus, si te despiciet turba legentium inter Romulidas et Tyrias manus, isto pro exesequiis claudere disticho: contentos propriis esse decet focis, quos laudis facile est inuidiam pati."

"Alexander Riese, ed. Anthologia Latina, vol. 1 (1869), nos. 288, 332, 366, 289"

"H. W. Garrod, ed. The Oxford Book of Latin Verse (1912), nos. 379–383"

"Morris Rosenblum, ed. Luxorius: A Latin Poet among the Vandals (1961) — translation"

"Heinz Happ, ed. Luxurius, vol. 1 (Stuttgart, 1986) — critical edition"

"Sic tibi florentes aequaeuo germine nati indolis aetheriae sidera celsa petant, sic priscos uincant atauos clarosque parentis exsuperent meritis saeclaque longa gerant, sic subolis numerum transcendat turba nepotum nobilibusque iuges gaudia tanta toris: ne sterilem praestes indigno munere Musam, utque soles, largus carmina nostra foue, imperiis ut nostra tuis seruire Thalia possit et in melius personet icta chelys."

"Alexander Riese, ed. Anthologia Latina, vol. 1 (1869), no. 216"

"H. W. Garrod, ed. The Oxford Book of Latin Verse (1912), no. 378"

"Lucentes, mea vita, nec smaragdos, beryllos neque, Flacce mi, nitentes percandida margarita quaero nec quos Tunnica lima perpolivit anellos nec iaspios lapillos."

"Ipsa enim altitudo attonat summa."

"Nec tumulum curo. Sepelit natura relictos."

"Debilem facito manu, debilem pede, coxo, tuber adstrue gibberum, lubricos quate dentis: vita dum superest, bene est."

"Maecenas atavis edite regibus, o et praesidium et dulce decus meum."

"Cantet, amat quod quisque: levant et carmina curas."

"Omnia tempus alit, tempus rapit: usus in arto est."

"De numero uatum si quis seponat Homerum, proximus a primo tunc Maro primus erit. at si post primum Maro seponatur Homerum, longe erit a primo, quisque secundus erit."

"Maeonio uati qui par aut proximus esset, consultus Paean risit et haec cecinit; si potuit nasci, quem tu sequereris, Homere, nascetur, qui te possit, Homere, sequi."

"Lux mea puniceum misit mihi Lesbia malum: iam sordent animo cetera poma meo. sordent uelleribus uestita cydonia canis, sordent hirsutae munera castaneae; nolo nuces, Amarylli, tuas nec cerea pruna: rusticus haec Corydon munera magna putet. horreo sanguineo male mora rubentia suco: heu graue funesti crimen amoris habent! missa et dente leui paulo libata placenta: nectarea e labris dulcia liba suis: nescio quid plus melle sapit, quod contigit ipsa spirans Cecropium dulcis ab ore thymum."

"O blandos oculos et o facetos et quadam propria nota loquacis! illic et Venus et leues Amores atque ipsa in medio sedet Voluptas."

"Nec me nepotes impii silentii reum ciebunt, Alcime, minusque dignum, non et oblitum ferent tuae ministrum memoriae, opponit unum quem viris prioribus aetas recentis temporis. palmae forensis et camenarum decus, exemplar unum in litteris, quas aut Athenis docta coluit Graecia, aut Roma per Latium colit. moresne fabor et tenorem regulae ad usque vitae terminum? quod laude clarus, quod operatus litteris omnem refugisti ambitum? te nemo gravior vel fuit comis magis aut liberalis indigis, danda salute, si forum res posceret; studio docendi, si scholam. vivent per omnem posterorum memoriam, quos tu sacrae famae dabas et Iulianum tu magis famae dabis quam sceptra, quae tenuit brevi. Sallustio plus conferent libri tui, quam consulatus addidit. morum tuorum, decoris et facundiae formam dedisti filiis. Ignosce nostri laesus obsequio stili: amoris hoc crimen tui est, quod digna nequiens promere officium colo, iniuriose sedulus. quiesce placidus et caduci corporis damnum repende gloria."

"Scripturus bella regum cum gentibus adversis, martyrum cum paganis, eclesiarum cum hereticis, prius fidem meam proferre cupio, ut qui ligirit me non dubitet esse catholicum. Illud etiam placuit propter eos, qui adpropinquantem finem mundi disperant, ut, collectam per chronicas vel historias anteriorum annorum summam, explanitur aperte, quanti ab exordio mundi sint anni. Sed prius veniam legentibus praecor, si aut in litteris aut in sillabis grammaticam artem excessero, de qua adplene non sum inbutus; illud tantum studens, ut quod in eclesia credi praedicatur sine aliquo fuco aut cordis hesitatione reteneam, quia scio, peccatis obnoxium per credulitatem puram obtenire posse veniam apud Deum."

"Nec dubium enim est, quod hic primus homo Adam, antequam peccaret, tipum Redemptoris domini praetulisset. Ipsi enim in passionis sopore obdormiens, de latere suo dum aquam cruoremque producit, virginem inmaculatamque eclesiam sibi exhibuit, redemptam sanguine, latice emundatam, non habentem maculam aut rugam, id est limphis ablutam propter maculam, extensam in crucem propter rugam."

"Marmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet, at Cato parvo, Pompeius nullo. Quis putet esse deos? Saxa premunt Licinum, levat altum Fama Catonem, Pompeium tituli. Credimus esse deos."

"Quod est in liberis amabilius—adhuc annis innocentibus et adhuc dimidiata verba temptantibus, loquellam ipso offensantis linguae fragmine dulciorem."

"Hic non videri potest: visu clarior est; nec comprehendi: tactu purior est; nec aestimari: sensibus maior est, infinitus, immensus et soli sibi tantus, quantus est, notus."

"Ita corpus in sepulcro, ut arbores in hiberno: occultant virorem ariditate mentita. ... Expectandum nobis etiam corporis ver est."

"Vos scelera admissa punitis, apud nos et cogitare peccare est; vos conscios timetis, nos etiam conscientiam solam."

"Actus hominis, non dignitas iudicentur."

"Beatior in hoc itinere vivendi, qui paupertate se sublevat, non sub divitiarum onere suspirat."

"Nobilitate generosus es? Parentes tuos laudas? Omnes tamen pari sorte nascimur, sola virtute distinguimur."

"Non eloquimur magna sed vivimus."

"Hic est ille, suis nimium qui credidit undis Narcissus vero dignus amore puer. cernis ab irriguo repetentem gramine ripas ut per quas periit crescere possit aquas."

"Crede ratem ventis, animum ne crede puellis; namque est feminea tutior unda fide. femina nulla bona est, vel, si bona contigit una, nescio quo fato est res mala facta bona."

"Inter ista dona veris gemmeasque gratias omnium regina odorum vel colorum Lucifer auriflora praeminebat, flamma, Diones, rosa."

"Aurum, quod nigri manes, quod turbida versant flumina, quod duris extorsit poena metallis!"

"Omne nefas auro tegitur, fas proditur auro."

"Omne quod Natura parens creavit, quamlibet firmum videas, labascit: tempore ac longo fragile et caducum solvitur usu."

"Heu misera in nimios hominum petulantia census!"

"Heu mala paupertas numquam locupletis avari! dum struere immodice quod tenet optat, eget."

"Romani sermonis egent, ridendaque verba frangit ad horrificos turbida lingua sonos."

"Discite securos non umquam credere amores."

"Deliciis Veneris dives Natura laborat."

"Nunc varios cantu divom referebat amores."

"Ecce furens post bella deus, post proelia victor victus amore venit."

"Cum nec tota latet nec totum nudat amorem."

"Ille inter flores furtivo lumine tectus spectat hians Venerem totoque ardore tremescit."

"Quam bene consertis haeserunt artubus artus!"

"Blandimenta vagae fugies novitatis."

"——— Sed lubricus errat mos et ab expertis festinant usibus omnes."

"Omnia tela modi melius finxere salubres."

"Magnum opus et volucres quondam fecere sagittae."

"Mille canum patriae ductique ab origine mores quoique sua."

"Aurea secura cum pace renascitur aetas et redit ad terras tandem squalore situque alma Themis positi iuvenemque beata sequuntur saecula, maternis causam qui vicit Iulis. dum populos deus ipse reget, dabit impia victas post tergum Bellona manus spoliataque telis in sua vesanos torquebit viscera morsus et, modo quae toto civilia distulit orbe, secum bella geret: nullos iam Roma Philippos deflebit, nullos ducet captiva triumphos; omnia Tartareo subigentur carcere bella immergentque caput tenebris lucemque timebunt."

"——— Satis hoc mercedis habeto, si laudem victor, si fert opprobria victus."

"Este pares et ob hoc concordes vivite; nam vos et decor et cantus et amor sociavit et aetas."

"Mobilior ventis o femina!"

"Te sine, vae misero, mihi lilia nigra videntur nec sapiunt fontes et acescunt vina bibenti."

"Credere pastores, levibus nolite puellis."

"Candidus alter erat levique decentior ovo et ridens oculis crinemque simillimus auro."

"When Almighty God, to beautify the nature of the world, willed that that earth should be visited by angels, when they were sent down they despised His laws. Such was the beauty of women, that it turned them aside; so that, being contaminated, they could not return to heaven. Rebels from God, they uttered words against Him. Then the Highest uttered His judgment against them; and from their seed giants are said to have been born. By them arts were made known in the earth, and they taught the dyeing of wool, and everything which is done; and to them, when they died, men erected images. But the Almighty, because they were of an evil seed, did not approve that, when dead, they should be brought back from death. Whence wandering they now subvert many bodies, and it is such as these especially that ye this day worship and pray to as gods."

"Ἐν γὰρ ταῖς ἡμέραις, φησί, Κωνσταντίου τοῦ βασιλέως, ἐν τῇ Θρᾴκῃ Οὐαλερίου ἄρχοντος, μήνυσις γέγονεν ὡς θησαυρὸς εὑρεθείη. Οὐαλέριος δὲ παρὰ τὸν τόπον παραγενόμενος μανθάνει παρὰ τῶν ἐπιχωρίων ἱερὸν εἶναι τὸν τόπον, καὶ ἐξ ἀρχαίας τελετῆς ἀνδριάντας ἐν αὐτῷ ἀφιερῶσθαι. Εἶτα ἀναφέρει ταῦτα τῷ βασιλεῖ, καὶ δέχεται γράμμα ἐπιτρέπον αὐτῷ ἀναλαβεῖν τὰ μηνυθέντα. Ἀνορυχθέντος τοίνυν τοῦ τόπου εὑρίσκονται τρεῖς ἀνδριάντες δι’ ὅλου ἐξ ἀργύρου πεποιημένοι, ἐν σχήματι βαρβαρικῷ κατακείμενοι καὶ ἐξηγκωνισμένοι κατ’ ἀμφοῖν ταῖν χεροῖν, ἐνδεδυμένοι δὲ βάρβαρον πεποικιλμένην ἐσθῆτα, καὶ κομῶντες τὰς κεφαλάς, νεύοντες ἐπὶ τὸ ἀρκτῷον μέρος, τουτέστι κατὰ τοῦ βαρβαρικοῦ χώρου. Ὧν ἀνδριάντων ἀναληφθέντων πάραυτα καὶ μετ’ ὀλίγας ἡμέρας πρῶτον μὲν τὸ Γότθων ἔθνος πᾶσαν ἐπιτρέχει τὴν Θρᾴκην, ἔμελλε δὲ μικρὸν ὕστερον καὶ τὸ τῶν Οὔννων καὶ τὸ τῶν Σαρματῶν καταδραμεῖσθαι τό τε Ἰλλυρικὸν καὶ αὐτὴν τὴν Θρᾴκην· ἐν μέσῳ γὰρ αὐτῆς τε Θρᾴκης καὶ τοῦ Ἰλλυρικοῦ κατέκειτο τὰ τῆς τελετῆς, καὶ ἐῴκει τῶν τριῶν ἀνδριάντων ὁ ἀριθμὸς κατὰ παντὸς τετελέσθαι βαρβάρου."

"And because she is not given as slave-girl or as one to lord it over him, in the beginning she was not formed either from the highest part, nor from the lowest, but from the side of man, for the sake of conjugal partnership. If she had been made from the highest, as from the head, she might seem created for domination; but if from the lowest, as from the feet, she might seem to be created for subjection to slavery. But because she is taken neither as mistress, nor as slave-girl, she is made from the middle, that is, from the side, because she is taken for conjugal partnership."

"Meum est propositum in taberna mori: Vinum sit appositum morientis ori, Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori, Deus sit propitius huic potatori! Poculis accenditur animi lucerna; Cor imbutum nectare volat ad superna: Mihi sapit dulcius vinum in taberna, Quam quod aqua miscuit præsulis pincerna."

"Numquam enim audiendi quod aliquis monachus super puerum incubuisset, quin statim post ipsum surrexisset puer."

"The Cistercians...are wholly strange to the use of flesh. Yet they keep pigs to the number of many thousands, and sell the bacon—though perhaps not quite all of it. The heads, legs and feet they neither give away, throw away, nor sell. What becomes of them God knows."

"Vadis quo uis, morieris ubi debes."

"Dura est manus cirurgi, sed sanans."

"Hoc solum deliqui, quod uiuo."

"The hatred which is the degenerate product of love is the stubbornest."

"Nor is it proper or safe that all the keys of the kingdom should hang at the girdle of a woman."

"Certum est enim, longos esse crines omnibus sed breves sensus mulieribus."

"Nam et escae execrantur quae saepius sumuntur."

"(Nam) corporea pulchritudo in pelle solummodo constat. Nam si viderent homines hoc quod subtus pellem est, sicut lynces in Boetia cernere interiora feruntur, mulieres videre nausearent. Iste decor in flegmate, et sanguine, et humore, ac felle, consistit. Si quis enim considerat quae intra nares, et quae intra fauces, et quae intra ventrem lateant, sordes utique reperiet. Et si nec extremis digitis flegma vel stercus tangere patimur, quomodo ipsum stercoris saccum amplecti desideramus?"

"Vox, philomela, tua cantus edicere cogit, Inde tui laudem rustica lingua canit."

"Vox, philomela, tua curarum semina pellit, Recreat et blandis anxia corda sonis."

"Porrige dulcisonas attentis auribus escas; Nolo tacere velis, nolo tacere velis."

"Gloria summa tibi, laus et benedictio, Christe, Qui praestas famulis haec bona grata tuis."

"Sed adhuc supersunt aliae superstitiones, quarum secreta pandenda sunt, ... ut et in istis profanis religionibus sciatis mortes esse hominum consecratas."

"Hic breve vivitur, hic breve plangitur, hic breve fletur: Non breve vivere, non breve plangere retribuetur."

"Urbs Syon aurea, patria lactea, cive decora Omne cor obruis, omnibus obstruis et cor et ora Nescio, nescio, quae jubilatio, lux tibi quali Quam sociala gaudia, gloria quam specialis."

"Our forefathers have handed down to us the tradition, that, after the Lord’s ascension, when, through the coming of the Holy Ghost, tongues of flame had settled upon each of the Apostles, that they might speak diverse languages, so that no race however foreign, no tongue however barbarous, might be inaccessible to them and beyond their reach, they were commanded by the Lord to go severally to the several nations to preach the word of God. Being on the eve therefore of departing from one another, they first mutually agreed upon a standard of their future preaching, lest haply, when separated, they might in any instance vary in the statements which they should make to those whom they should invite to believe in Christ. Being all therefore met together, and being filled with the Holy Ghost, they composed, as we have said, this brief formulary of their future preaching, each contributing his several sentence to one common summary: and they ordained that the rule thus framed should be given to those who believe."

"But before I begin to discuss the meaning of the words, I think it well to mention that in different Churches some additions are found in this article. This is not the case, however, in the Church of the city of Rome; the reason being, as I suppose, that, on the one hand, no heresy has had its origin there, and, on the other, that the ancient custom is there kept up, that those who are going to be baptized should rehearse the Creed publicly, that is, in the audience of the people; the consequence of which is that the ears of those who are already believers will not admit the addition of a single word."

"He is born by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin. Here a chaste ear and a pure mind is required. For you must understand that now a temple has been built within the secret recesses of a Virgin’s womb for Him of Whom erewhile you learned that He was born ineffably of the Father. And just as in the sanctification of the Holy Ghost no thought of imperfection is to be admitted, so in the Virgin-birth no defilement is to be imagined. For this birth was a new birth given to this world, and rightly new. For He Who is the only Son in heaven is by consequence the only Son on earth, and was uniquely born, born as no other ever was or can be."

"The Prophet Ezekiel too had predicted the miraculous manner of that birth, calling Mary figuratively the Gate of the Lord, the gate, namely, through which the Lord entered the world. For he says, The gate which looks towards the East shall be closed, and shall not be opened, and no one shall pass through it, because the Lord God of Israel shall pass through it, and it shall be closed. What could be said with such evident reference to the inviolate preservation of the Virgin’s condition? That Gate of Virginity was closed; through it the Lord God of Israel entered; through it He came forth from the Virgin’s womb into this world; and the Virgin-state being preserved inviolate, the gate of the Virgin remained closed forever."

"Hear, therefore, how the Apostle would teach us obedience by the Cross of Christ: Let this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus, Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking upon Him the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and, being found in fashion as a man, He became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. As, then, a consummate master teaches both by example and precept, so Christ taught the obedience, which good men are to render even at the cost of death, by Himself first dying in rendering it."

"For the object of that mystery of the Incarnation which we expounded just now was that the divine virtue of the Son of God, as though it were a hook concealed beneath the form and fashion of human flesh...His flesh as a bait, His divinity underneath might catch him and hold him fast with its hook, through the shedding of His immaculate blood. For He alone Who knows no stain of sin hath destroyed the sins of all, of those, at least, who have marked the door-posts of their faith with His blood. As, therefore, if a fish seizes a baited hook, it not only does not take the bait off the hook, but is drawn out of the water to be itself food for others, so He Who had the power of death seized the body of Jesus in death, not being aware of the hook of Divinity inclosed within it, but having swallowed it he was caught forthwith, and the bars of hell being burst asunder, he was drawn forth as it were from the abyss to become food for others."

"It is written that when the side of Jesus was pierced "He shed thereout blood and water." This has a mystical meaning. For Himself had said, "Out of His belly shall flow rivers of living water." ... Yet it might be understood also as prefiguring the twofold grace of baptism, one that which is given by the baptism of water, the other that which is sought through martyrdom in the outpouring of blood, for both are called baptism."

"When, therefore, the true Lord Jesus Christ shall come, He will sit and set up his throne of judgment. As also He says in the Gospel, He shall separate the sheep from the goats, that is, the righteous from the unrighteous; as the Apostle writes, We must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every man may receive the awards due to the body, according as he has done, whether they be good or evil. Moreover, the judgment will be not only for deeds, but for thoughts also, as the same Apostle says, Their thoughts mutually accusing or else excusing one another, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men."

"This is that holy Church which is without spot or wrinkle. For many others have gathered together Churches, as Marcion, and Valentinus, and Ebion, and Manichæus, and Arius, and all the other heretics. ... But of this Church which keeps the faith of Christ entire, hear what the Holy Spirit says in the Canticles, "My dove is one; the perfect one of her mother is one.""

"The person who rehearses the Creed, making the sign of the cross upon his forehead, while he says the word, that each believer may know that his flesh, if he have kept it clean from sin, will be a vessel of honour, useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work; but, if defiled by sins, that it will be a vessel of wrath destined to destruction."

"My faith, indeed, was sufficiently proved when the heretics persecuted me. I was at that time sojourning in the church of Alexandria, and underwent imprisonment and exile which was then the penalty of faithfulness; yet for the sake of any who may wish to put my faith to the test, or to hear and learn what it is I will declare it. I believe that the Trinity is of one nature and godhead, of one and the same power and substance; so that between the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost there is no diversity at all, except that the one is the Father, the second the Son, and the third the Holy Ghost. There is a Trinity of real and living Persons, a unity of nature and substance."

"But, further, as to the resurrection of our own flesh, I believe that it will be in its integrity and perfection; it will be this very flesh in which we now live. We do not hold, as is slanderously reported by some men, that another flesh will rise instead of this; but this very flesh, without the loss of a single member, without the cutting off of any single part of the body; none whatever of all its properties will be absent except its corruptibility. It is this which is promised by the holy Apostle concerning the body: It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. This is the doctrine which has been handed down to me by those from whom I received holy baptism in the Church of Aquileia; and I think that it is the same which the Apostolic See has by long usage handed down and taught."

"I affirm, moreover, a judgment to come, in which judgment every man is to receive the due meed of his bodily life, according to that which he has done, whether good or evil. And, if in the case of men the reward is to be according to their works, how much more will this be so in the case of the devil, who is the universal cause of sin? Of the devil himself our belief is that which is written in the Gospel, namely, that both he and all his angels, will receive as their portion the eternal fire, and with him those who do his works, that is, who become the accusers of their brethren. If then any one denies that the devil is to be subjected to the eternal fires, may he have his part with him in the eternal fire, so that he may know by experience the fact which he now denies."

"I am next informed that some stir has been made on the question of the nature of the soul… For myself, I declare in the presence of God that, after reading each of these opinions, I am up to the present moment unable to hold any of them as certain and absolute; the determination of the truth in this question I leave to God and to any to whom it shall please him to reveal it. My profession on this point is therefore, first, that these several opinions are those which I have found in books, but, secondly, that I as yet remain in ignorance on the subject, except so far as this, that the Church delivers it as an article of faith that God is the creator of souls as well as of bodies."

"I entreat you therefore, holy, venerable and saintly father, not to permit a storm of ill will to be raised against me because of this, nor to sanction the employment of partisanship and of calumny— weapons which ought never to be used in the Church of God. Where can simple faith and innocence be safe if they are not protected in the Church? I am not a defender or a champion of Origen; nor am I the first who has translated his works. Others before me had done the very same thing, and I did it, the last of many, at the request of my brethren. If an order is to be given that such translations are not to be made, such an order holds good for the future, not the past; but if those are to be blamed who have made these translations before any such order was given, the blame must begin with those who took the first step."

"As for me, I declare in Christ’s name that I never held, nor ever will hold, any other faith but that which I have set forth above, that is, the faith which is held by the Church of Rome, by that of Alexandria, and by my own church of Aquileia; and which is also preached at Jerusalem; and if there is any one who believes otherwise, whoever he may be, let him be Anathema. But those who through mere ill will and malice engender dissensions and offenses among their brethren, and cause them to stumble, shall give account of it in the day of judgment."

"Linus and Cletus were Bishops of the city of Rome before Clement. How then, some men ask, can Clement in his letter to James say that Peter passed over to him his position as a church-teacher. The explanation of this point, as I understand, is as follows. Linus and Cletus were, no doubt, Bishops in the city of Rome before Clement, but this was in Peter’s life-time; that is, they took charge of the episcopal work, while he discharged the duties of the apostolate. He is known to have done the same thing at Cæsarea; for there, he had at his side Zacchæus whom he had ordained as Bishop."

"If I have not been able to write well, I have at any rate written truthfully, using as authorities those who are best informed about the subject."

"Frustra ego te laudo, frustra me, Zoile, laedis: Nemo mihi credit, Zoile, nemo tibi."

"Mentitur veros facies tibi picta colores, Et speculi mendax te tibi imago referit. In digito annellus mentitur aëneus aurum, Mentitur gemmam vitrea gemma probam. Quicquid contigerit re cum mendacia discat, Miremur linguam dicere falsa tuam?"

"For the clergy he was a severe disciplinarian, but was himself foremost with the example of a holy life."

"Ralph's important position in ecclesiastical circles, his friendship with many prominent men, such as William Longchamp and Walter of Coutances, the help he received from them, the documents he incorporates, and his own moderate temper render his work of capital importance in spite of some chronological vagueness."

"In ipsa item catholica ecclesia magnopere curandum est, ut id teneamus quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est."

"Mitis depone colla, Sigamber; adora quod incendisti, incende quod adorasti."

"Volentem me parvo subvectum navigio oram tranquilli litoris stringere et minutos de priscorum, ut quidam ait, stagnis pisciculos legere, in altum, frater Castali, laxari vela compellis relictoque opusculo, quod intra manus habeo, id est, de adbreviatione chronicorum, suades, ut nostris verbis duodecem Senatoris volumina de origine actusque Getarum ab olim et usque nunc per generationes regesque descendentem in uno et hoc parvo libello choartem: dura satis imperia et tamquam ab eo, qui pondus operis huius scire nollit, inposita. Nec illud aspicis, quod tenuis mihi est spiritus ad inplendam eius tam magnificam dicendi tubam: super omne autem pondus, quod nec facultas eorundem librorum nobis datur, quatenus eius sensui inserviamus, sed, ut non mentiar, ad triduanam lectionem dispensatoris eius beneficio libros ipsos antehac relegi. Quorum quamvis verba non recolo, sensus tamen et res actas credo me integre retinere. Ad quos et ex nonnullis historiis Grecis ac Latinis addedi convenientia, initium finemque et plura in medio mea dictione permiscens."

"Post quorum obitum cum Bleda germano Hunnorum successit in regno, et, ut ante expeditionis, quam parabat, par foret, augmentum virium parricidio quaerit, tendens ad discrimen omnium nece suorum. Sed librante iustitia detestabili remedio crescens deformes exitus suae crudelitatis invenit. Bleda enim fratre fraudibus interempto, qui magnae parti regnabat Hunnorum, universum sibi populum adunavit, aliarumque gentium, quas tunc in dicione tenebat, numerositate collecta, primas mundi gentes Romanos Vesegothasque subdere praeoptabat."

"Vir in concussione gentium natus in mundo, terrarum omnium metus, qui, nescio qua sorte, terrebat cuncta formidabili de se opinione vulgata. Erat namque superbus incessu, huc atque illuc circumferens oculos, ut elati potentia ipso quoque motu corporis appareret; bellorum quidem amator, sed ipse manu temperans, consilio validissimus, supplicantium exorabilis, propitius autem in fide semel susceptis; forma brevis, lato pectore, capite grandiore, minutis oculis, rarus barba, canis aspersus, semo nasu, teter colore, origenis suae signa restituens. Qui quamvis huius esset naturae, ut semper magna confideret, addebat ei tamen confidentia gladius Martis inventus, sacer apud Scytharum reges semper habitus."

"Post victorias tantarum gentium, post orbem, si consistatis, edomitum, ineptum iudicaveram tamquam ignaros rei verbis acuere. Quaerat hoc aut novus ductor aut inexpertus exercitus. Nec mihi fas est aliquid vulgare dicere, nec vobis oportet audire. Quid autem aliud vos quam bellare consuetum? Aut quid viro forti suavius, quam vindicta manu querere? Magnum munus a natura animos ultione satiare. Adgrediamur igitur hostem alacres: audaciores sunt semper, qui inferunt bellum. Adunatas dispicite dissonas gentes: indicium pavoris est societate defendi. En ante impetum nostrum terroribus iam feruntur, excelsa quaerunt, tumulos capiunt et sera paenitudine in campos monitiones efflagitant. Nota vobis sunt quam sint levia Romanorum arma: primo etiam non dico vulnere, sed ipso pulvere gravantur, dum in ordine coeunt et acies testudineque conectunt. Vos confligite perstantibus animis, ut soletis, despicientesque eorum aciem Alanos invadite, in Vesegothas incumbite. Inde nobis cita victoria quaerere, unde se continet bellum. Abscisa autem nervis mox membra relabuntur, nec potest stare corpus, cui ossa subtraxeris. Consurgant animi, furor solitus intumescat. Nunc consilia, Hunni, nunc arma depromite: aut vulneratus quis aduersarii mortem reposcat aut inlaesus hostium clade satietur. Victuros nulla tela conveniunt, morituros et in otio fata praecipitant. Postremo cur fortuna Hunnos tot gentium victores adseret, nisi ad certaminis huius gaudia praeparasset? Quis denique Meotidarum iter maiores nostros aperuit tot saeculis clausum secretum? Quis adhuc inermibus cedere faciebat armatos? Faciem Hunnorum non poterat ferre adunata collectio. Non fallor eventu: hic campus est, quem nobis tot prospera promiserunt. Primus in hoste tela coiciam. si quis potuerit Attila pugnante otio ferre, sepultus est."

"For honour of the Lord God and Our Lady dear And many holy men by Augia's house revered, This book with loving care, attentive to command, Was made by Reginbert the scribe; in earnest hope That long it should endure, long serve his brethren's need. He prays you all, lest vain his labour die, In Heaven's most gracious Name to offer it to none Outside our walls; save should the seeker pledge his word Our property in sound condition to return. Good friend, ponder this well: a writer's task is hard; Take, open, read, harm not; finish, refold, !"

"Ruris enim quaecunque datur possessio, seu sit Putris harenoso qua torpet glarea tractu, Seu pingui molita graves uligine fetus, Collibus erectis alte sita, sive iacenti Planitie facilis, clivo seu vallibus horrens; Non negat ingenuos holerum progignere fructus, Si modo non tua cura gravi compressa veterno Multi plices holitoris opes contemnere stultis Ausibus assuescit, callosasque aere duro Detrectat fuscare manus et stercora plenis Vitat in arenti disponere pulvere qualis. Haec non sola mihi patefecit opinio famae Vulgaris, quaesita libris nec lectio priscis; Sed labor et studium, quibus otia longa dierum Postposui, expertum rebus docuere probatis."

"Vel qualis manibus quondam suspensa supinis Lucet agens circum lomenti bulla salivam, Ante recens maceretur aquis quam spuma refusis, Dum lentescit adhuc digitis luctantibus et se Alternis vicibus studioque fricantibus uno, Inter utramque manum parvo fit parvus hiatu Exitus, huc stricto lenis meat ore Noti vis, Distenditque cavum vitrea sub imagine pondus Et centrum medio confingit labile fundo, Undique conveniat camuri quo inflexio tecti."

"Non patitur cunctas angustia carminis huius Pulei virtutes celeri comprendere versu. Hoc apud Indorum tanti constare peritos Fertur, apud Gallos quanti valet Indica nigri Congeries piperis. Quis iam dubitare sinetur Hac herba plures leniri posse labores, Quam pretiis inhianter emit ditissima tantis Gens hebenoque auroque fluens et mira volenti Quaeque ferens mundo?"

"Quae rara sub isto Axe videre soles, aliis in partibus horum Copia tanta iacet, quantam vilissima tecum Efficiunt; rursus quaedam quae spreta videntur Forte tibi, magno mercantur ditia regna, Altera ut alterius potiatur foenore tellus, Orbis et in toto per partes una domus sit."

"Haec quia non Tyrio Germania tingitur ostro, Lata nec ardenti se Gallia murice iactat, Lutea purpurei reparat crementa quotannis Ubertim floris, tantum qui protinus omnes Herbarum vicisse comas virtute et odore Dicitur, ut merito florum flos esse feratur. * * * Huic famosa suus opponunt lilia flores, Longius horum etiam spirans odor imbuit auras, Sed si quis nivei candentia germina fructus Triverit, aspersi mirabitur ilicet omnem Nectaris ille fidem celeri periisse meatu. Hoc quia virginitas fama subnixa beata Flore nitet, quam si null us labor exagitarit Sordis et inliciti non fregerit ardor amoris, Flagrat odore suo. Porro si gloria pessum Integritatis eat, foetor mutabit odorem."

"O mater virgo, fecundo germine mater, Virga fide intacta, sponsi de nomine sponsa, Sponsa, columba, domus, regina, fidelis amica, Bello carpe rosas, laeta arripe lilia pace. Flos Tibi sceptrigero venit generamine Iesse, Unicus antiquae reparator stirpis et auctor, Lilia qui verbis vitaque dicavit amoena, Morte rosas tinguens, pacemque et proelia membris Liquit in orbe suis, virtutem amplexus utramque, Praemiaque ambobus servans aeterna triumphis."

"Richard S. Lambert, trans. Hortulus, or, The Little Garden (Wembley, Middx: The Stanton Press, 1924)"

"Raef Payne, trans. Hortulus (Pittsburgh, PA: Hunt Botanical Library, 1966)"

"James Mitchell, trans. On the Cultivation of Gardens (San Francisco, CA: Ithuriel's Spear, 2009)"

"Aut lego vel scribo, doceo scrutorve sophiam, obsecro celsithronum nocte dieque meum, vescor, poto libens, rithmizans invoco Musas, dormisco stertens oro Deum vigilans. Conscia mens scelerum deflet peccamina vitae: parcite vos misero, Christe Maria, viro."

"Hoc Matthaeus agens hominem generaliter implet; Marcus ut alta fremit uox per deserta leonis; Iura sacerdotii Lucas tenet ore iuuenci; More uolans aquilae uerbo petit astra Iohannes."

"Te de pauperibus natum suscepit alendum Christus, et immeritum sic enutriuit et auxit, Vt collata tibi miretur munera mundus. Nam puero faciles prouidit adesse magistros, Et iuuenem perduxit ad hoc ut episcopus esses. Reges, pontifices, populi te magnificabant, Seruum prudentem censentes atque fidelem Esse pii Domini. Sed pro pudor ipse nefande. Nec prudens neo fidus eras ut res manifestat. Nam contra memorare pudet quam nequiter ipsum Laeseris et sanctos eius tua praua tuentes, Quae uix ulla satis possunt tormenta piare. Prestolatur adhuc Dominus tamen ille benignus, Et te uiuere perpetitur, si forte resciscens Segnitiem zelo perimas, meritoque reatum."

"Chorus novae Ierusalem novam meli dulcedinem promat colens cum sobriis paschale festum gaudiis.Quo Christus, invictus leo, dracone surgens obruto, dum voce viva personat, a morte functos excitat."

"Pauperat artificis Naturae dona venustas Tyndaridis, formae flosculus, oris honor. humanam faciem fastidit forma, decoris prodiga, siderea gratuitate nitens. nescia forma paris, odii praeconia, laudes iudicis invidiae promeruisse potest. auro respondet coma, non replicata magistro nodo, descensu liberiore iacet; dispensare iubar humeris permissa decorem explicat et melius dispatiata placet. pagina frontis habet quasi verba faventis, inescat visus, nequitiae nescia, labe carens. nigra supercilia via lactea separat, arcus dividui prohibent luxuriare pilos. stellis praeradiant oculi Venerisque ministri esse favorali simplicitate monent. candori socio rubor interfusus in ore militat, a roseo flore tributa petens. non hospes colit ora color, nec purpura vultus languescit, niveo disputat ore rubor. linea procedit naris non ausa iacere aut inconsulto luxuriare gradu. oris honor rosei suspirat ad oscula, risu succincta modico lege labella tument. pendula ne fluitent, modico succincta tumore plena Dioneo melle labella rubent. dentes contendunt ebori, serieque retenta ordinis esse pares in statione student. colla polita nivem certant superare, tumorem increpat et lateri parca mamilla sedet."

"Auribus immensis quondam donatus asellus institit ut caudam posset habere parem. cauda suo capiti quia se conferre nequibat, altius ingemuit de brevitate sua, mon quia longa satis non esset ad utilitatem. ante tamen quam sic apocopata foret, consuluit medicos, quia quod natura nequibat, artis ab officio posse putabat eos.Cui Galienus ait: "satis est bipedalis asello cauda; quid ulterius poscis, inepte, tibi? sufficit ista tibi, nam quo productior esset, sordidior fieret proximiorque luto. hac nisi contentus fueris, dum forte requiris prolongare nimis, abbreviabis eam. quod natura dedit non sit tibi vile, sed illud inter divitias amplius esse puta. crede mihi, vetus est tibi cauda salubrior ista natibus innata quam foret illa nova.""